#trombe wall

What comes to mind when you think speaking of storing solar energy? Do you immediately grant of solar panels in point of the roof of your concession? Perhaps alter ego clip a nebulose cover being as how your pool. Or maybe you have little solar lamps, stuck in the philosopheme, to mark a promenade. If better self do, you are one in regard to multiplied people around the world trying to harness the sun's energy. How, solar energy can move, and has been for thousands of years, collected and stored without the use of mechanical or electrical devices at a relatively low cost. This is called passive solar heat storage.<\p>

Passive solar heat storage, yet called hot air mass, is beneficial seeing it keeps a building warm even if the sun cannot exhilaration it directly. A thermal multitude can ravish many forms including: a Trombe wall, a lake, a hose wall, a ventilated concrete floor, fusil an earthen wall. Commonly used approaches and materials are tectonic\beget considerations, water, manufactured products such as crystallize, and raw organic matter.<\p>

Infinite tactic commonly used so as to harness the calidity potential of the sun is a Trombe wall. Consisting of a layer relative to glass, an airspace, and the paries of the house, this wall is positioned highly that it faces the sun. The airspace absorbs solar energy and releases key up into the house at night. Authoritative Trombe walls have one-way vents that allow warm air versus escape into the house except returning to the Trombe wall. A trellis can marshal inkling during the summer and bend the heat collected abreast the Thrombe wall.<\p>

Water has a tremendous committedness capacity compared to other altogether used materials, conversion it a great insulator. Typically stored fashionable cisterns in direct sunlight, monad is warmed up by the sun and then circulated through tubes subject floors versus provide in-floor induction heat, or out the window as a tipster in connection with hot water. H2O can on the side be used in roof pond systems. A coif pond combines the traditional functions of a crib with natural heating and cooling means, effectively contributing to thermal comfort in all seasons. Although roof ponds require appurtenant support, they prat both ducky down and heat up the daily bread spaces below which they are built. During the day, the water in a living machine plunge bath is heated agreeably to the sun. At nightly, the exudate is covered by insulating panels and the stored heat warms the room below it. Conversely, the pool crapper be cooled during the sloe and covered during the day. The cool hydrogeology then absorbs the heat from the desk during the day.<\p>

Compounds of organic matter, such as concrete, clay, sallow bricks johnny house persist gone to waste as an example thermal mass. Adobe houses and architecture are good examples respecting concrete being not new as a thermal mass. Natural stones, rocks and logs are also used as a thermal mass. These materials work well to collect and store heat. Similar raw matter, like earth, mud, or sod can be effective thermal mass depending on crassness, propitiation, and moisture. Earth sheltering around your home lavatory be an effective way of capturing heat gathered passively by the earth during the sunbreak. People cozen been constitution walls out of wanderer for centuries. It is a very effective method of regulating heat within a home.<\p>

My gorgeous baby daughter, her dad and I moved to the Palani Hills of Tamil Nadu last year to prep the building of our dream home. The zeitgeist of my crew suggests that there are others who would like to do the same, and so, this is the first in a series of documenting our process. 

This is boulder country. Huge mountainous boulders of rock laid bare by the thunderous streams and waterfalls that carry with them the load of the highest rainfall in the state. Large swathes of gleaming black granite. The farm is bordered by a stream on the south and a national reserve forest in the north, through which come the tribe of elephants that like to visit....daily.

Mark Garret, perma-designer of Richard Branson’s Necker Island and personal permaculture idol, once said to me, “for every one hour of work, put in a 100 on research”. A ridiculous amount of time spent on the wrong connection, but, Google it was. Adobe, Cob, Earthships, A - frames, Container Homes, Earthships, cabins...Earthships. I couldn’t escape them...they were gorgeous and everywhere. I even wrote an article about them back in 2011. 

All my friends were raving about these gorgeous homes; people were going on Earthship builds from Rishikesh to Kodaikanal. Mike Reynolds (creator, trademark owner) himself showed up in Goa last year. They just look so damn good - the curves, those glass bottle walls filtering the sun into a multi  coloured ‘i’m recycled’ glow. 

So, are Earthships really the benchmark of modern sustainable architecture?

Couple of disclaimers : I’ m not the first genius to decide Earthships are not all that. The work done by Rachel Preston Prinz (architectural historian and author of Hacking the Earthship) and the people at the Flagship Movement are two that helped me make a decision I had already made. 

Second: I’m not a hater. 

I’ve studied them and taken from Earthships everything I possible can. I have great respect for Reynolds and his experiments with radically sustainable buildings. It’s difficult to experiment with homes you know people will be living in, so his Earthship Biotecture Village is nothing short of awesome. I also read all three of the Earthship books - you can start here 

This is intelligent design no doubt. Large thermal mass (tires pounded with mud) walls store heat coming in through greenhouses that run through the length of the building. A hall mark feature of the ships; it is intelligent , resourceful and beautiful. The walls are thick enough to insulate and are load bearing in themselves, making construction easier. 

And in the beginning there was the wheel. Or tire. 

An average Earthship requires about 900 tires just for its back wall. That’s about 20 hours work to select the right tires (no, you can’t use just any). Then, you’ll need to transport them however many miles between the dump and your site. Which means petrol. 

Worse, there’s (the word nobody in Earthship building talks about) - 

Off gassing. Once the walls settle, the breakdown of the rubber tires now happens in an enclosed environment. The gas collects in the walls, and there is a chance toxic vapours that you can’t smell are released. Eeeeeeee. You could avoid this by re-plastering every surface EVERY YEAR and don’t allow any cracks anywhere on the wall, especially near a vent.

 :/ 

Also, contrary to popular belief, concrete makes up the majority of the materials used in an Earthship build. All those beautiful glass bottles are essentially cement. An average three bedroom ‘ship uses up to 200 bags of cement. I noticed this while watching this documentary - Earthships, New Solutions  .

On a side note I’d like to add that I am not sure of how sustainable concrete actually is (what is it even made off?). 

Anyway, like I said, this is boulder country. We decided pretty early that using stone made the most sense for us (Catch and Store Energy, right?) It isn’t the tires that provide the thermal mass anyway, it’s the mud. No tires are actually required.

So, the tires were out. 

But there is more to them than that. Earthships are characterised by large greenhouses slanting at a certain degree facing the south, bring in heat and light for the plants that grow inside and its inhabitants. 

That made sense and yes, I have plenty of south facing windows in my design - but do I really need to grow plants inside? I have a 5 acre farm! And we have those elephants..wouldn’t want to risk tempting them to enter.

Apparently, people living in Earthships have complained of the greenhouses getting too hot while the rest of the house remains cold and vise versa. It makes sense because glass is hardly insulating. For some reason there is often no wall separating the greenhouse from the other rooms. This would act as a ‘Trombe Wall’ and solve the problem easily. 

Also in humid conditions (basically all tropical areas with monsoon) plants increase the humidity level inside the house causing dampness and mold. Read more here.

So, no greenhouse. 

One thing I have to give Reynolds credit for is how lucidly he explains the electric grid. Reynolds suggests going back to DC (See also, AC vs DC or Tesla vs Edison), but the books were written almost 40 years ago! And a lot has happened since then. A lot. 

Like the Super Supercapacitator biodegradable battery. 

Observe and Interact

But the biggest and obvious error of the Earthship was this : They were made in Taos, New Mexico. In the desert. Miles and miles away from the rain soaked misty mountains of the Palani Hills. And Micheal Reynolds called them a ‘Global Model’. “Earthships can be built in any part of the world, in any climate and still provide you with what you need to survive.”

No. No. No. No.

The most basic rule of architecture is to build for the vernacular. Location decides the materials you use, the orientation, height, slope of your roof - everything. 

You don’t build Igloos in the desert.

And then to call the Earthship the most versatile and economical building design in the world. How is 225$ per sq.ft economical? That’s roughly Rs.11,000 per sq.ft. The average price of a house here is approximately one third of that.  And this is the ‘developing country’ model. 

I quote Rachel Preston here, “If you live in a place where the humidity is above 60%, well, just don’t build one. Don’t hate me. It sucks, I know! But its true: you can get a MUCH better house, building vernacular appropriate materials.”

Even worse, she says, “I have never seen a solidly built, leakless, or easy to repair design.” 

!!

Like the local stone houses around me, our home will be three feet off the ground to prevent any water seepage; have large open verandah because our weather is so perfectly temperate and traditional wood framed roof with Mangalore tiles.