UAZ Students Help Local Businesses to Reduce Energy and Water Consumption

I thought this was a great program to
get students involved with renewable energy and also help local businesses with
energy and water costs. 

Students from the UAZ Free Enterprise team identified two local Tucson businesses in need of some help on energy and water use, and then worked out and implemented a program to help the businesses reduce energy use, water use, and carbon emissions.

Here are the details on what the team
did -- there is contact information at the end if you want information on
starting a similar program ...

I have to brag a little here and mention that my granddaughter Kelly was one of the team members :)

Gary

Making, Buying, Designing, Evaluating Fins for Solar Collectors

Many of the homemade
collectors shown on this site use aluminum fins to collect the incoming
solar heat and transfer it to a tube that carries the heat transfer
fluid. 

The fins need to transfer heat efficiently, and need to have a good thermal connection with the tube carrying the heat transfer fluid. 

Copper tube with heat absorbing fin being installed.

This article goes over several fin designs, several ways of making the fins, some of the types of fins you can buy and where to get them. 

The new article also provides calculated fin efficiencies for some of the homemade and commercial designs.  I'm sure you are dying to know Which fins do best?  Does steel work as a fin material?  Are those big, thick, extruded fins worth the extra money? ...

All the details on fin design, fabrication, purchase, and performance here...

Some fin designs that people have sent in...


Kevin's two layer fin


Matt's bicycle powered fin former.


Tom's most impressive fin press

Got any ideas on fin design or fabrication?

Update March 11 -- I've added a couple more entries that have been turned in since this blog entry was written -- all on this page:

All the details on fin design, fabrication, purchase, and performance here...


Gary

Bob's Solar Ice Fishing Shack

This is a really simple but very effective solar heating collector that Bob uses to heat his ice fishing shack.


The collector uses the whole south wall of the shack.


The collector is a very simple thermosyphon air heating collector that uses 2 layers of black insect screen as the flow through absorber, and 6 mil poly film as the glazing.

Bob took the time to insulate and seal up the ice shack before installing the collector, which is key to making it work.   On a sunny day, it heats the inside of the shack up to very comfortable temperatures.

All the details from Bob...

If Bob can heat his ice shack with solar, you can surely heat your home, or chicken coop, or barn, ... with solar!

Gary

Zero Energy Homes for the Rest of Us

While visiting St George Utah recently, we found that we were in
town during the parade of homes, so we looked at a few of them.  One of the
display homes was a very efficient home built by Sun-Savvy Inc.  I was very
impressed by this home and the other homes they offer.

Their design combines a very good and very tight thermal envelope, heat
recovery ventilation, passive solar, solar thermal and PV arrays, and efficient
mini-split heat pumps to make a home that should be able to achieve net zero
energy use in the southern Utah climate.  The display home has a LEED
Platinum rating. 

Even more impressive to me is that these are very nice and very "normal"
looking homes.  These homes appear to be very easy for the homeowner to live with. 
While the energy efficiency does add some cost, the homes appear to be cost
competitive with ordinary construction homes.  In other words, these are
net zero or near net zero energy homes which should have a very wide appeal to
ordinary home buyers -- you don't have to be an eco-freak (like me) to like
these homes. 

We took the full tour, got a lot of pictures -- all the details here...

Much more on solar homes here...

Clerestory windows -- great daylighting.  These open automatically when a set temperature is exceeded.


The energy recovery ventilation unit -- an earthtube is used to precondition the intake air to the ventilator.

It seems like a lot of the "net zero" energy homes you see are a long ways
out of the mainstream -- they tend to be architecturally unique (some would say
strange) and come with an acre of PV panels that would add $100K+ to the cost of
the house were it not for some very very generous (and perhaps questionable)
rebate programs.  I don't see this type of near zero energy home ever
catching on and becoming widespread.  On the other hand, a design like the
Sun-Savvy homes seems like it could have very wide appeal.  I hope it turns into a trend.

Gary

Solar Articles from the Fine Homebuilding Magazine Archives

I've been going through the newly available DVD archive of all of the past issues of Fine Homebuilding Magazine.  Fine Homebuilding has been published since the late 70's and has carried some very good articles on solar and energy efficient home construction.  I've added links to my picks of the best articles dealing with energy -- these are listed in New Content on the Build-It-Solar home page, and in the list below.



Here are the articles I liked the most from 1995 up to the end of 2009:

Six Proven Ways to Build Energy
Smart Walls,
Bruce Coldham, Fine Homebuilding,
Dec 2009

Spray Foam -- What Do You Really
Know?,
Bob Yagid, Fine Homebuilding, June 2009

Power House, 
Bill Heigis, Hobie Guion
Fine Homebuilding issue 203, summer 2009

Design a Home That Keeps You Cool,
Naturally,
William Hoffman, Fine Homebuilding August 2004

Airtight
Attic Access,
Mike Guertin, Fine Homebuilding, July 2002 issue 148

Rainwater Collection Systems,
Peter Pfeiffer, Fine Homebuilding, Nov 2001 issue 142

Thick Walls and a Great Room,
Jan Wisniewski, Fine Homebuilding, summer 2000 issue 131

Insulated
Concrete Forms,
Andy Engel, Fine Homebuilding, issue 128

Off the Grid
in Tucson,
Gale Prososki-Marsland,
Fine Homebuilding, June 1997

Building a
Straw-Bale House,
Janet Johnston and John Swearingen,
Fine Homebuilding, June 1996 - issue 103

You can get access to back issues of Fine Homebuilding in several ways...
Probably
the simplest way to get access to the articles is to do a one month
online subscription -- this is inexpensive, and should gain access to
most past articles.

I'll go through the 70's to 90's as time allows.

Gary

Tom's Larger Solar Heating System

Tom sent in the final update on his new solar space and water heating system.  This update covers the storage tank, controls, heat exchanger and integration with the boiler.

This is a really interesting project.  It includes all of the following:

1. Design and construction of a 336 sqft solar collector -- including some new wrinkles on fin fabrication and installation.
2. Building the 410 gallon heat storage tank that doubles as a workbench.
3. Details on the solar  domestic water heating system that utilizes a heat exchanger made from about 200 ft of 3/4 inch rigid copper pipe. 
   
4. Details on implementing the radiant floor heating system that pumps hot water directly from the storage tank and requires no heat exchanger.
5. Details on adding heat input to the tank from a nearby wood boiler in a very simple way.
6. There is even a way to make use of solar heat on seasonal refills of a hot tub.

Tom's system integrates all of these functions in a simple, straight-forward and cost effective design.


Wood boiler heat source as alternative to solar.

Full details on Tom's space and water heating system...

Many other solar space heating projects...

Tom's other projects on Build-It-Solar....

Thanks again to Tom for taking the time to document this project!

Gary

A New Year -- Where to go?

2009 was a good year for Build-It-Solar.  4.2 million people visited over the year, and (more importantly) many stayed and read a lot.  I used to get excited when 200 people visited the site in a day, and now its well over 10,000 almost every day -- amazing!

I want to thank everyone who visited Build-It-Solar over the year, and sent in comments or questions.   And, thanks especially to those who took the time to send information in on their projects -- its these projects that make the site work.

2010
I'd like to make the site better during 2010  -- do you have any suggestions?

   - What do you like most? 
   - What areas do you find the most useful?
   - Where would you most like to see new content added?
   - What do you not like?
   - Any ideas for improvements format or presentation?
   - Any new areas you would like to see covered?
     
Some new areas I've been thinking about:
- The algae to oil area -- any chance of doing this on a DIY scale?
- A new area on solar/renewable for "home and garden" (solar tractors, mowers, lights, ...
- Adding an detailed "introduction" to each major area (Space Heating, PV, ...) that goes over the basics, covers some of the Physics, provides some design information,  and ties into the links and projects for that area.
- Doing a heat from compost trial.
- Working through the Passive House Institute software -- providing some pointers on getting started with it.

Perhaps building (with Nick and Nathan) a working version of Nick Pine's design for a "Deployable Doubt Dispeller" -- a small (e.g. 8 ft cube) "home" that would maintain a 70F inside temperature all winter here in Montana with simple active solar heating only.

Have a great new year.

Gary

Wind Power for Dummies

There is a lot of interest in residential wind power -- the Wind page on Build-It-Solar often gets the most visits of any page on the site other than the home page.   There is LOTS of interest in wind power. 
But, successfully planning and installing a wind turbine is hard -- the hardest of the common renewable energy projects.  You really need to do your homework carefully to achieve a successful wind turbine installation.


Wind Power for Dummies is the best book that I've found to get across all the things that you need to consider to do a wind turbine installation, and the concrete information to help you pull it off. 

Ian Woofenden has been doing residential wind power for many years.  He conducts wind power workshops from his wind powered home in the San Jaun's, and he has been the wind expert and editor and author for Home Power for many years -- he knows his stuff, and he writes well.

One area the book does not cover in depth is building your own wind turbine, there are other good books for this... 

If you want to know whether wind can work for you, and how to go about pulling off a successful installation, this is the book to start with.


Gary

1 Year Report on Gordon's Deep Energy Retrofit

A few months ago, Gordon and Sue sent in a very complete description of their project to completely remodel a poorly insulated and drafty schoolhouse for their residence.  There goal was to bring it up close to Passive House Institute standards.  Through a combination of an external Larsen Frame insulation scheme, added sun space, much sealing, excellent windows, and passive solar gain additions, they have achieved their goal.

The new sunspace added as part of the retrofit.


Gordon sent in the report after one year.  It covers performance to date (very good), and some fixes they have made to some problems that have come to light while living in the new home.

The very detailed report on the original project, including report, many pictures, and thermal analysis spreadsheet...

The 1 year update report, including performance to date, problem fixing, and updated thermal analysis spreadsheet...

This is the most carefully planned and executed energy retrofit I have seen, and it's really nice to see it living up to expectations.

Gary

Storage Tank Kit for DIYers & DIY Solar Kits In General

The Softank is a kit for a 200 gallon water tank for heat storage.  The kit includes the parts that would be somewhat difficult for a DIYer to find or fabricate like the liner and the outer structural support cylinder.  The person building the tank buys the insulation locally, supplies some labor, and saves some money.

Details here...


Note: Heat exchanger not included with tank kit.

I like the Softank kit, but what I like even more is the idea that kits like this could be offered to home owners who want to build solar water or space heating systems.  These kits could bring building such a system to people with modest DIY skills, and also increase the likelihood of a successful build.  

Kits of this kind could include the difficult to obtain and difficult to make parts, while allowing the DIYer to buy readily available parts locally.  This approach avoids shipping large and fragile finished items like collectors, and would save the hassles, expense and CO2 emissions associated with truck shipping finished items.

Well designed kits and good instructions could greatly increase the chances of building a successful system -- even for not so experienced DIYers.

With commercial solar water heating systems selling for north of $8000, there is plenty of room for kit makers to earn a good profit and also save home owners lots of money.  A great opportunity for some new businesses!  How about it entrepreneurs?


Gary