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BTUs of heat input, and high “R fac- house air, we dug down 5 feet below enough to keep an 1800 square foot
tor” insulation. These are ways of grade and built a foundation of cement house warm as long as the sun shines.
measuring some of the effects of blocks, insulated on the sides, but not There is no need for a heat storage system
“insolation” (solar energy entering the on the bottom. We filled the open in this kind of greenhouse. The earth’s
greenhouse) and of measuring the box thus formed with rock for good heat is virtually inexhaustible, and
thoroughness with which the system is thermal conductance, and poured con- there’s nothing one greenhouse can do
isolated from the ambient air and crete on top. Even when the air outside to raise or lower its temperature.
ground temperatures. was 30 degrees below 0, our concrete
Judging by these criteria alone, local floor was radiating at 40 degrees, Specific designs
engineers employed by Wisconsin because concrete and rock are good There are lots of different designs
Natural Gas & Electric Company conductors of heat. for greenhouse/solariums available,
determined that our greenhouse could- With a 40-degree floor, it never but in general they tend to fall into
n’t possibly produce,a usable amount actually froze in our greenhouse, so three types of structures: angled walls,
of heat for us, and our request for a even on cloudy days it was no trouble curved wall/roofs, and vertical walls
special “alternative energy” payment heating the air up another 20 degrees with glazed or partly glazed roofs.
schedule was denied. or so. True, many people don’t think The further north you are, the less
Fortunately, these two measure- of 60 degrees as a comfortable tem- difference the angle of glazing makes.
ments do not reflect the total energy perature, but in the middle of winter, The rule of thumb for glazing angle is
picture around a greenhouse. They when the body is adjusted to cold out- supposed to be “latitude plus 20
contain unstated assumptions that may door temperatures, 60 degrees feels degrees. With a latitude of 49 degrees
not always be true. BTUs, for exam- like a nice, warm Spring day! Our N, our best angle for receiving solar
ple, measure the energy needed to preference is to heat people with radiation would have been right
raise a given volume of fluid (such as sweaters rather than houses with fuel, around 70 degrees. This angle is hard
air) a given number of degrees F. This so most days 60 degrees was fine for to build and results in a tall thin green-
assumes that the ambient temperature us. There were times, though, when house that concentrates all the heat at
around the fluid has no effect, which illness or the presence of guests dictat- the top. Instead, we built a 5-foot tall
is never true in practice. The engineers ed higher indoor temperatures. At south wall, vertically, topped by a 40
further assumed that the air would be such times, it required very little fuel degree roof with the lower 4 feet
heated in a cold (initially) container, then to raise the air temperature another 15 glazed. These were easy to build, fit
the heat would be transferred to a dif- degrees to 75 degrees F. on our house, and didn’t cost us much
ferent volume of air (in the house), with energy. Even a difference of 20
loss of energy at every exchange. We Passive air circulation degrees only cuts insulation by 2-3%.
avoided these inefficiencies by heating Since hot air rises, many greenhouse To prevent leaks and hail damage, we
a large volume of air in a pre-warmed designs incorporate features whose glazed the roof with one continuous
container just a little bit, then exchang- only purpose is to bring it back down sheet of Kalwall “Sunlite” greenhouse
ing it for the air in the house. Since to a useful level. Once again, we did plastic. For strength, we braced the
the process is continuous, we didn’t the opposite. We lowered the green- plastic with cross-braces between the
have to raise the air temperature much. house, -making the floor 2 feet below rafters every 2 feet, glued it to rafters
ground level, with the peak of the ceil- and braces with 100% silicone, and
ing just above the windows on the old nailed it with caulked, gasketed roof-
The 40 degree floor south side of the house. Whenever our ing nails. During the five years we
Another assumption made by stan- greenhouse thermometer indicated 60 lived there it never leaked.
dard thermal engineering is that it’s degrees, we just opened the windows. We framed the end walls conven-
necessary to isolate the collector For passive air heating to work, tionally, with openable vent windows
(greenhouse) from all ambient temper- there must be good circulation of air up high on the down-wind side and
atures. True, the air is cold, and so is throughout the house. For circulation low on the windward side. The south
the ground near the surface. But lower to occur, there must be some way for wall was post-and-beam construction,
down, the earth rarely drops below hot air to enter each room, and some with windows framed right in between
about 40 degrees F. other way for cold air to return and be the posts. The last 2 feet at each end
In central Wisconsin, this level is heated. Many old houses have upstairs were skinned with plywood to resist
about 5 feet below the surface. It rooms which are cold, because there racking. All the south wall windows
varies throughout the country, but are no cold air returns. We converted were removable, and could be
your local extension agent, U.S. Soil such a room to the warmest in the replaced with screens in summer, con-
Conservation Agent, or county build- house,just by cutting a hole in the verting the greenhouse into a summer
ing inspector should be able to pro- floor and covering it with a grate. kitchen. The large cottonwood tree
vide this information. To provide a With good circulation, the volume of provided shade in summer yet lost its
“warm” environment for the green- air in a 9 x 30 foot greenhouse is great leaves in the fall. We used to refer to
it as our, “automatic, solar powered, We insulated the outside of the vent windows closed. Eventually, we
organic, self-deploying sun shade.” foundation with 2 inches of foam covered the glazed part of the ceiling
board. The kind that’s covered with and the south windows with clear
Details foil won’t deteriorate, and is well plastic, on the inside, so we could
All walls were covered in sheetrock, worth the extra expense. If you must channel the run-off into the growing
including what used to be the exterior economize, as we were forced to do, containers. The plastic did absorb
of the house. There was no actual switch to 1 inch of insulation for the some of the light, but it didn’t affect
north wall of the greenhouse. We just bottom foot or two. We did not insu- the temperature much, and it sure
nailed a 2x6 across the exterior of the late between the foundation of the helped control the moisture.
house to support the north ends of the house and the new foundation, along You may have noticed that this
rafters. All exterior walls were insu- the north wall of the greenhouse, whole article is written in the past
lated with fiber glass batts, and all because our house had a basement. If tense. To my mind, the biggest prob-
surfaces within the greenhouse were it had had a crawlspace instead, we’d lem we had with our solar greenhouse
painted. This is very important, as have insulated there too. occurred when we moved to our
greenhouses “sweat” like cold-water homestead in the backwoods. We
pipes, and unpainted wood or plaster-
Analysis were unable to take it with us!
board will quickly rot or dissolve. If I Performance turned out even better
had realized just how much water we than we hoped. All windows were sin-
For more information
were going to collect in the green- gle-glazed, and some of the recycled I most highly recommend The Solar
house, I’d have installed a drain when storm windows we used for glazing Greenhouse Book; edited by James C.
we poured the slab. It would have were cracked, yet we were able to McCullagh. It’s the definitive work on
saved a lot of bailing. maintain “frost hardy” vegetables, solar greenhouses, containing hun-
We painted the slab floor dark even with outdoor temperatures in the dreds of photos, drawings, charts,
green, to absorb heat and not show minus 30’s. We sometimes recorded graphs, and tables. Easy to read.
dirt, but the rest of the greenhouse was temperature differentials between the Rodale Press.
painted gloss white, to reflect as much inside of the greenhouse and the out- The Food and Heat Producing Solar
light as possible. It’s only storage that side air of 60 degrees! We were able Greenhouse Design, Construction,
needs to be painted dark. We wanted to “harvest” heat from our greenhouse Operation, by Rick Fisher and Bill
to reflect as much light as we could, every day that it wasn’t actually snow- Yanda. It’s not as complete, not as
so it would heat up the air. ing, as long as I kept snow from accu- well-illustrated, or as well-document-
The foundation we built of cement mulating on the glazed portion of the ed as the Solar Greenhouse Book, but
block on top of a poured concrete roof. Using actual performance figures it covers some aspects better, and is
footing. We stacked the blocks in a for the first year of our operation, we devoted only to greenhouses that pro-
brickwork pattern, but without mortar, were eventually able to get the special duce both food and heat. John Muir
then plastered both sides of the wall rates we wanted from the gas compa- Publication. ∆
with Shurwall, a surface bonding ny. A few years later, we discovered
cement. It’s easy to do, but the stuff they were using OUR figures to
eats skin worse than fiber glass, which encourage their customers to invest in
it contains. We wore rubber gloves “alternative” energy strategies!
under cotton work gloves (to protect
the rubber). It worked. We laid 4 And a few problems
courses of blocks, filled them with Post and beam construction is the
sand, backfilled, filled the box thus oldest way of building houses, so
formed with rocks, and poured a slab you’d think building inspectors would
on top of everything. Then we laid 3 be familiar with it. Ours weren’t, and
more courses of blocks, filled them we had to show them all our design
with cement, and set L-bolts in the top figures to prove the roof wasn’t going
course. The easy, way to lay this is to to collapse. It took us a while to prove
lay the bottom plate of your wall on top it to them. Non-standard designs tend
of the foundation first, and drill holes to upset building inspectors, so be sure
for the bolts so they’ll come out in the you can back up your drawings with
right places. Build the wall, loosely figures, if there’s anything “different”
attach the bolts, pour the last 8 inches about your design.
of concrete, and set the wall in place, A worse problem was the “rain for-
forcing the bolts down into the con- est” atmosphere in the greenhouse all
crete. After the concrete is dry, tighten winter long, when we had to keep the
the nuts, and the wall won’t move.