Green Features Green homes,
both new and remodeled, in the Asheville area have a variety of interesting
features. I will describe some of them here.
Home-made Passive Heat Absorber
This is a home-made
passive heat absorber. Is that cool?! No, actually it's
warm! Mounted vertically on the side of the house that gets the
most winter sun, it soaks up the heat and transfers
it into the house, as you can see below, through a little door.
This one is about 3' x 6'. It's a good possibility for retrofitting
an older home.
Here's a close up of the lower
right corner. It's a box that holds a piece of corrugated
steel, which is painted black. Then
it's covered with heavy glass.
These can be purchased, but this one is home-made and seems
to work just fine. This is a great example of something you
can do when renovating a home.
This is the wall inside the house
on the other side of the heat absorber. There's
an opening at the top and bottom with a door that can be opened
to let the heat flow into the room. That's Marcus Renner
of Appropriate
Building Solutions opening the door. This heat
absorber was his creation.
Here's a close up of the opening. So simple, yet
so effective. In the summer you just keep the little doors shut.
Solar Radiant Floor Heat
What is this maze? It's
wonder-full radiant floor heating tubes during
construction, before all the concrete is poured. These special
tubes will carry a liquid that has previously been heated by solar
panels and then circulated through a storage tank that's
hooked up to various sensors, a back-up source of heat and other
things before it is pumped through the tubes at a controlled temperature.
The tubes can be embedded into a concrete slab like this one,
or installed under many other kinds of floors including some kinds
of bamboo, wood and tile.
