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Thermal Buffer Zone
A double envelope house is a passive solar house design which collects solar energy in a solarium and passively allows the warm air to circulate around the house between two sets of walls, a double building envelope. This design is from 1975 by Lee Porter Butler in the United States. History Lee Porter Butler's 1975 Double Envelope (Shell) design received wide publicity after the U.S. solar energy tax credits were created in 1978. Versions were on the cover of ''Better Homes and Gardens'' and ''Popular Science'' magazines. Butler was an artistic/ecological building designer, a self-proclaimed "Ekotect." He did not hold formal qualifications as an energy engineer. Lee had built hundreds of homes, shopping centers and business buildings including banks and schools by the time he entered North Carolina State University to study architecture. He had studied engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Lee did not even have a high school diploma, but ended up teaching his inve ...
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Building Envelope
A building envelope or building enclosure is the physical separator between the conditioned and unconditioned environment of a building, including the resistance to air, water, heat, light, and noiseSyed, Asif. ''Advanced building technologies for sustainability''. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012. 115. Print. transfer. Discussion The building envelope or enclosure is all of the elements of the outer shell that maintain a dry, heated, or cooled indoor environment and facilitate its climate control. Building envelope design is a specialized area of architectural and engineering practice that draws from all areas of building science and indoor climate control. The many functions of the building envelope can be separated into three categories:Straube, J.F., Burnett, E.F.P. ''Building Science for Building Enclosures''. Building Science Press, Westford, 2005. * Support (to resist and transfer structural and dynamic loads) * Control (the flow of matter and energy of all typ ...
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Trombe Wall
A Trombe wall is a massive equator-facing wall that is painted a dark color in order to absorb thermal energy from incident sunlight and covered with a glass on the outside with an insulating air-gap between the wall and the glaze. A Trombe wall is a passive solar building design strategy that adopts the concept of indirect-gain, where sunlight first strikes a solar energy collection surface in contact with a thermal mass of air. The sunlight absorbed by the mass is converted to thermal energy (heat) and then transferred into the living space. Trombe walls may also be referred to as a mass wall, solar wall, or thermal storage wall. However, due to the extensive work of professor and architect Félix Trombe in the design of passively heated and cooled solar structure, they are often called Trombe Walls. This system is similar to the air heater (as a simple glazed box on the south wall with a dark absorber, air space, and two sets of vents at top and bottom) created by professor Edwa ...
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:Category:Solar Building Designers
{{Portal, Energy, Biology Designers A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exper ... People associated with solar power ...
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Geothermal Exchange Heat Pump
A ground source heat pump (also geothermal heat pump) is a heating/cooling system for buildings that use a type of heat pump to transfer heat to or from the ground, taking advantage of the relative constancy of temperatures of the earth through the seasons. Ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs)or geothermal heat pumps (GHP), as they are commonly termed in North Americaare among the most energy-efficient technologies for providing HVAC and water heating, using less energy than can be achieved by use of resistive electric heaters. Efficiency is given as a coefficient of performance (CoP) which is typically in the range 3-6, meaning that the devices provide 3-6 units of heat for each unit of electricity used. Setup costs are higher than for other heating systems, due to the requirement of installing ground loops over large areas or of drilling bore holes, hence ground source is often installed when new blocks of flats are built. Air-source heat pumps have lower set-up costs but have ...
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Earth Sheltering
An earth shelter, also called an earth house, earth-bermed house, earth-sheltered house, earth-covered house, or underground house, is a structure (usually a house) with earth (soil) against the walls and/or on the roof, or that is entirely buried underground. Earth acts as thermal mass, making it easier to maintain a steady indoor air temperature and therefore reduces energy costs for heating or cooling. Earth sheltering became relatively popular after the mid-1970s, especially among environmentalists. However, the practice has been around for nearly as long as humans have been constructing their own shelters. Definition * "Earth-sheltering is ../nowiki> a generic term with the general meaning: building design in which soil plays an integral part."
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Annualized Geothermal Solar
Seasonal thermal energy storage (STES), also known as inter-seasonal thermal energy storage,is the storage of heat or cold for periods of up to several months. The thermal energy can be collected whenever it is available and be used whenever needed, such as in the opposing season. For example, heat from solar collectors or waste heat from air conditioning equipment can be gathered in hot months for space heating use when needed, including during winter months. Waste heat from industrial process can similarly be stored and be used much lateror the natural cold of winter air can be stored for summertime air conditioning. STES stores can serve district heating systems, as well as single buildings or complexes. Among seasonal storages used for heating, the design peak annual temperatures generally are in the range of , and the temperature difference occurring in the storage over the course of a year can be several tens of degrees. Some systems use a heat pump to help charge and discha ...
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Windcatcher
A windcatcher, wind tower, or wind scoop () is a traditional architectural element used to create cross ventilation and passive cooling in buildings. Windcatchers come in various designs, depending on whether local prevailing winds are unidirectional, bidirectional, or multidirectional, on how they change with altitude, on the daily temperature cycle, on humidity, and on how much dust needs to be removed. Despite the name, windcatchers can also function without wind. Neglected by modern architects in the latter half of the 20th century, the early 21st century saw them used again to increase ventilation and cut power demand for air-conditioning. Generally, the cost of construction for a windcatcher-ventilated building is less than that of a similar building with conventional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The maintenance costs are also lower. Unlike powered air-conditioning and fans, windcatchers are silent and continue to function when the electr ...
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Earth Cooling Tubes
A ground-coupled heat exchanger is an underground heat exchanger that can capture heat from and/or dissipate heat to the ground. They use the Earth's near constant subterranean temperature to warm or cool air or other fluids for residential, agricultural or industrial uses. If building air is blown through the heat exchanger for heat recovery ventilation, they are called earth tubes (or Canadian well, Provençal well, Solar chimney, also termed earth cooling tubes, earth warming tubes, earth-air heat exchangers (EAHE or EAHX), air-to-soil heat exchanger, earth channels, earth canals, earth-air tunnel systems, ground tube heat exchanger, hypocausts, subsoil heat exchangers, thermal labyrinths, underground air pipes, and others). Earth tubes are often a viable and economical alternative or supplement to conventional central heating or air conditioning systems since there are no compressors, chemicals or burners and only blowers are required to move the air. These are used for eithe ...
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Passive House
Passive house () is a voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building that reduces the building's carbon footprint. Conforming to these standards results in ultra-low energy buildings that require less energy for space heating or cooling. A similar standard, MINERGIE-P, is used in Switzerland. Standards are available for residential properties, and several office buildings, schools, kindergartens and a supermarket have also been constructed to the standard. Energy efficiency is not an attachment or supplement to architectural design, but a design process that integrates with architectural design. Although it is generally applied to new buildings, it has also been used for renovations. In 2008, estimates of the number of passive house buildings around the world ranged from 15,000 to 20,000 structures. In 2016, there were approximately 60,000 such certified structures of all types worldwide. The vast majority of passive house structures have been built in German-speak ...
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Barra System
The Barra system is a passive solar building technology developed by Horazio Barra in Italy. It uses a collector wall to capture solar radiation in the form of heat. It also uses the thermosiphon effect to distribute the warmed air through channels incorporated into the reinforced concrete floors, warming the floors and hence the building. Alternatively, in hot weather, cool nighttime air can be drawn through the floors to chill them in a form of air conditioning. Many successful systems were built in Europe, but Barra seems fairly unknown elsewhere. Passive solar collector To convert the sun's light into heat indirectly, a separate insulated space is constructed on the sunny side of the house walls. Looking at the outside, and moving through a cross section there is an outside clear layer. This was traditionally built using glass, but with the advent of cheap, robust Polycarbonate glazing most designs use twin- or triple-wall polycarbonate greenhouse sheeting. Typically th ...
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Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
(English: ''The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy''), often referred to as simply the (), is a book by Isaac Newton that expounds Newton's laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. The ''Principia'' is written in Latin and comprises three volumes, and was authorized, imprimatur, by Samuel Pepys, then-President of the Royal Society on 5 July 1686 and first published in 1687. The is considered one of the most important works in the history of science. The French mathematical physicist Alexis Clairaut assessed it in 1747: "The famous book of ''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy'' marked the epoch of a great revolution in physics. The method followed by its illustrious author Sir Newton ... spread the light of mathematics on a science which up to then had remained in the darkness of conjectures and hypotheses." The French scientist Joseph-Louis Lagrange described it as "the greatest production of the human mind". French polymath Pierre-Simon ...
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