Konnichiwa! I'm new to this sight and have a complex
project which I am looking for some shared insight on. I've reviewed a great variety of info and read the book by I
think Iantos, but still I am coming to all of this pretty fresh.
My partner and I are settling on a 100 year-old farm house on an island called Etajima off the coast of Hiroshima. This is significant to the topic for the reason of Traditional Japanese rural design attributes. 1. Most of the house "living space" is on stilts about 2 feet off the ground 2. This is adjacent to a roofed entrance which spans the house from front to rear and this section is at ground level with a soil floor. 3. these houses are by nature poorly insulated and of very mobile interior structure supported mostly by posts with movable walls on tracks. This combination, from my perspective makes these houses excellent candidates for rocket mass heating "systems" (I'll explain my use of this term shortly). The thing I do not wish to create is large
cob benches or beds as I do not want the obstruction of a this type of mass in a Japanese traditional house, but rather I am interested in designing a multi-function system which uses mass in place of some sections of Tatami by removing a few of them and building from the ground. OR possibly putting tatamis on the clay.. might be possible...
What makes it a system is that what I would like to do is create the following: 1. Heated floor sections, possibly more than one 2.
water heating system 3.
Oven 4. sauna
I would like to accomplish this with as few parts as possible and:
- I must be able to control which parts are being used or not, such as I want to bake bread, but I don't want to heat the bathroom floor..
- The water heating system would likely supply additional floor heat as well as wash-water (how can I control the tap delivery temp to prevent scalding?)
Right now my best guess as to how to multitask this type of system is to put the stove in the ground level area just next to the main living area. The main exhaust would go through a mass underneath this part of the house. I'm figuring on putting a water tank directly attached where the stove is and forgoing direct cooking surfaces. My understanding of how to do the oven would be to run an exhaust pipe from the Stove to the oven and then I guess I could give it its own direct exhaust if I don't want to heat the floor... so basically make a boiler, and run 2 exhaust systems. use the standard stove design for the floor section, create a lot of
hot water... some kind of switching system of sliding steel traps could allow me to choose where main exhaust hoes and thereby what would be heated.
In a crude way I can see how to get it to work... but it's a kind of Frankenstein still. Attaching the sauna to it seems to be very tricky. The
hot water needs to be earthquake proof. I would need hydraulic
pump to heat alternate floor sections most likely.. I am considering the idea of splitting all of the functions into 2 separate units.. but I am very interested in the possibility of using 1. I'm interested in connecting with experienced
people on this topic as well as other possible shared interests
Thanks!
*It is worth noting that this place is being created as a design and educational destination as well as showpiece. We're preparing a program that will connect with agriculture, herbal medicine, eco-touring/biking, woofing, foods/cooking/health, yogic and other ancient practices which we will be hosting as well as leading in some cases.