Off Grid Summer Cooling

You may look HERE what others are doing (all are not off grid system) for solar hydronic floor heating systems. If you have already Googled, then skip.

I erred in understanding the original post. My post at #2 is irrelevant, hence should be ignored. Instead you may find THIS link useful.

Evaporation. Works every time.

Shade, convection, correct alignment of the building to sun and prevailing wind and clever design.
It's all been done already by 'primitive' peole and even termites.
If all else fails go underground.
Del

Since it's new construction, I'd look seriously at these systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-coupled_heat_exchanger

Bury it.

If you have REALLY good building insulation, you could build a couple of these:

http://solaricemaker.com/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6599651/How-to-Build-a-Solar-Icemaker

http://www.energy-concepts.com/isaac

Then use the ice to cool your house in the summer.

Im sorry, I havent done a cost analysis, so financial outlay is undetermined at the time of righting.

The OP is off grid and has no power. The entire cooling cycle has to work green.

Okay, does he have money - lots of money?

Thick masonry walls absorb heat durring the day and radiate heat at night. Filling the middle of a wall with abobe is a cheap way to make it thicker. You can also bury the house up to the window sills with an earthen embankment or an earthen wall faced with those interlocking concrete blocks. Water has an even higher specific heat than earth. I read about one guy who filled an interior wall with sealed 55-gallon drums full of water and antifreeze. The idea is to average out temperature fluctuations so you don't need to do as much active heating and cooling.

Some time back I ran into an air conditioner unit on a manufacturer's (?) or solar thermal dedicated website where one could be run w/ a hybrid solar thermal hydronic system, but for the life of me I cannot remember the name of the Japanese manufacturer. Maybe it was Mitsubishi? I'm not a ME, but have designed my own solar thermal hydronic system...currently fabricating the parts for it slowly but surely.

Anyhow, you may want to do a Goggle Search for one......

Let it shine baby!

Greetings.

I read an article a number of years ago about a chap somewhere in the mid west where it got very cold in the winter and hot in the summer.

As I remember the article he had a sloping backyard about an acre and dug a sloping trench about 8 foot deep and 200 plus feet long to get below the freezing zone in winter.

He put a bed of gravel in the bottom and put in 12 inch drain tile.

He put 90 pound roofing over the top wider than the drain tile so that the dirt fill would not get into the drain tile and filled the trench with dirt.

At the bottom end he make a pile of big rocks to hide the inlet which was a large concrete box with screens to keep out critters and crawlers in the inlet.

The temperature of the ground as I remember was supposed to be around 58 to 62 degrees F all year round.

He used the air to mostly heat his house in the winter which got to -30 F and to cool it in the summer which got to 100 F plus.

I am hoping to build a shop here in Washington State and try the very same thing even though we do have a wet climate.

Totally off the grid.

Well all you need is a friend with a backhoe.

I thought to use the composite 20 foot sections of 12 inch culvert wrapped at the joints with some kind of composite making sure that the trench had enough slope to drain any water that got to the bottom.

Have a Great Day.

Oly

1. Monitor inside and outside temperatures.

2. When the outside temp becomes less than the inside temp (in the evening) open all the windows. Fans blowing the cooler air into the house can help.

3. In the morning (temp is coolest about dawn) turn off fans, close up all the windows and enjoy a cool day. This works best when your home is well insulated.

Around here, when outside temp is 80F, temp in the attic is 100+F. I have seen an attic mounted solar powered fan that can take the excess heat out to the outside,

Bill

drill two water wells to whatever depth necessary to get a flow, pump out of one well, through your HVAC air handler evaporator coil, and back into the other well. Wells must be at least 75' apart.

water will be about 50-70 degrees Fahrenheit depending on the depth.

done