Backyard Aquaponics
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Hey there everyone,

Got a question for you all. We are looking at buying a house in the near future (2-3 months) and we are looking at possible renovations. It is a forclosure house that i know needs work. but work i am willing to do. But i am also looking to be retrofiting some things into the house that will make it more green.

I know it has been mentioned before some where in this huge gallery of information about tubes bored into the ground that can cool your house. I am wondering if anyone had any quick links about this, particularly about retrofitting an old house. Maybe a little bit about how much is needed per 500 sq ft. (m2 will work too).


Thank you in advance.

Earth Tubes or Earth Cooling Tubes - lots of info out there.

I've found whirlygigs to be quite good in our heat.

I know nothing about these earth cooling tubes but I have visited a house that had done the following which was very effective. A quick google of earth cooling tubes makes me think that this is an easier approach to retrofit.

They had installed floor vents and had the piping run all the way under the house (and rainwater tank). A small fan would suck air into the tube and it would be cooled down as it travelled up the tube. They used the cool space under the house rather than having to bury.

It wasn't as cool as air-con but cost next to nothing to run (fan was only 7.5 watts (approx .001 cents an hour)) and kept the house nice and cool.

Simon

which way does the house face?

have done lots of reading on it. There is at least ONE indepth and free document on the 'net with plans.

its not without effort, quite a few grids of LARGE diameter PVC pipe is layed a certain depth under the ground. they come back into a basement where room air is forced though, is cooled by the earth and is then fed back to the house.

the pipes must be layed on a slight angle back to the basement so that any water that condenses runs back out.

all the pvc (DWV) I see now has a sandwich layer of foam, this would be counter productive to the whole exercise.

hope this hepls.

steve.

psycochook, dont know about the 7.5W................

i'd be expecting to use a 750W fan motor.

in any case, its much cheaper than refrigerated AC.

Ahh thanks guys. :"Earth cooling tubes" made my google search much better. I just could not think of the correct words.

The house is pretty square and faces all 4 cardnial directions pretty evenly. Cept the west side, which has a large attached garage. This house does have the advanatge of being well shaded. although that makes it pretty inconvienent for installing solar pannels.

And lots of space for ap and other things.

Hi Steve,

This guy only had a small fan running 24/7. It worked on the theory that a slow cool breeze drifting onto the house constantly would help keep the house cool.

It worked. Not as cool as aircon would, but definately cooler. You could place your hand over the vent and feel a soft breeze of cooler air.

(I just re-read what I typed! Wow, can I say cool any more times? Oops. Just did it again! )

Simon

you might want to try searching uk sites for eco friendly. They use variations on this typeof thing extensively in the south of England. for warming as much as cooling over there.

If we used them for heating we would have to go deep. Really Deep. The frost around here can go down 4ft during the winter. I am not sure how deep we would need to go to get 65 degrees out of the tubeing. But i do know you dont need to go down to far to get the cooling desired. (probably 5-6 feet to stay below the frost line).

I didn't do too much looking but this link might help start the process.
http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/you ... opic=12640
Hope it helps!
C1

In our climate we need our tubes at 10 feet deep. IF I wanted 36000 BTUs per hour cooling I would need to bury thin walled pvc 6 feet apart in a manifold and cover a 50 foot by 50 foot area under ground. Now that's max effect. I would suggest making it 50% bigger. Its something like 14.4 btu per square foot of ground when used as stated above. Make sure you can remove water that condensates out of the air(place on angle too) and put some water like gray water in the hole using smaller pipes. Wet ground conducts heat better than dry ground. If you are real serious there is a company that you can pay to do the engineering for you...

easier/ cheaper to moove to warmer climates???

Do you guys realise how cold your making me feel,,,discussions on house cooling in Australias mid winter:)


Actually it's amasing how nice the weather in Sydney ( the Capital) is.
Middle of winter,,,,was a bit cold at 5:00 am ,,around 7C (45F).....,but even now at 9am it's up around 14C (57F). AHHHH lets just say I'm NOW comfy in shorts and a t-shirt , but it was quite cold at 5am even in a jacket

10 ft. wow. I was hopeing to get away with 6 or so. (less digging a contracter has to do). i was already figureing a 100-200 ft closed loop system. With a nice pully cleaning system for disinfecting mold and such. I am not interested in heating. I have a system in mind for that. Still carbon based, but it is renewable at least.

It is a we will see. lots of researching to get ideas that i would like to try to reduce energy consumption in our next house.

Sorry to give you the chills Chappo. If it is any consolation we are expected to reach a very humid 90 degrees here tomarrow and we have no air conditioner in our apartment. So if you could ship that nice cool air to this side of the globe, I'll ship you our hot air.

i remeber reading about the earth tubes, one of the benifits that i noticed was that not only did it cool the house in summer it reduced the heating bills as well

rather than taking the below freezing air from out side and having to heat it to a comfortable level they used the air from the tubes which was too cool to be comforatble but afout 15 degrees warmer than outside, was a great idea i thought

shame not enough space to do it here ( and no basmment to hook it up to )

Cheers
Pete