! the first wofati - allerton abbey- version 0.7

Now I am really confused about the whole "ATI" part.

If I understand Paul's article properly (http://www.richsoil.com/wofati.jsp), the thermal inertia part is the dirt that they are putting on right now.

Here is what Paul says in the article:

John Hait's book goes into a lot of mathematical detail on this and he concludes that if you have 20 feet of dry dirt, you can carry the heat of summer all through the cold of winter. Thermal inertia!

Well, I don't want to have a house that is 20 feet deep, and Hait doesn't suggest that. Instead, wrap this much dry dirt around more than half of the house. He has done this more than once and the result is a home that requires no heat.



So you have a layer of structure (R 2.5 to R 5), polyethylene on the structure, about 8 inches of dry dirt (R 2.64), about four inches of wood duff (R 5.0), another layer of polyethylene and then 20 inches of wet dirt (R 1). This brings our roof R-value to about R 11 or better - pretty good! Plus, a healthy dose of thermal inertia!

Adrien, I thought I had understood what Paul was talking about when he said "ATI". He made it seem pretty clear that it was his way of saying PAHS or AGS.

Those terms refer to systems where you actually run tubes under the ground in an area protected against the flow of water, transferring heat from the air into the ground during warm periods and pulling it back out when the air is cooler than the ground. It's much more than just an earth bermed structure.

So, I've been wondering when they were going to do that part, as it is something that logically happens at the time you start work on a foundation, not after you have posts in the ground.

And the answer is, it is not being done.

Net - this is a small earth bermed log cabin with a passive solar design. I thought, from what Paul has been saying about the concept, that he was combining Oehler's work with the PAHS concepts, to produce something that has not been done yet (as far as I know). I would have very much liked to see that.

First of all, love the progress on the wofati. Awesomeness all around.


I know that since I was there you needed to change the location of the first wofati. It is in regards to location, siting, and potential outcomes that I am thinking.

I know that a south facing slope in the area there that fit what you wanted was going to be a challenge. That being said, I was under the impression that you were going to point the gable end of the structure south to be able to replicate the terraced idea out the larger front and to see what the solar gain would be. A couple of questions for Paul, Tim, Jesse or who ever...

1. From looking at the pictures (which are awesome as well by the way) it is hard for me to tell from the shadows which direction the gable end is oriented to. It looked to me like it was off orientation. If that is so...

2. How do you plan on measuring performance? Actually, even if it is is on orientation what were you planning on doing?

Great stuff!

If you guys aren't already, you should be filming this as it progresses. It would be a great documentary.

Peter Ellis wrote:Adrien, I thought I had understood what Paul was talking about when he said "ATI". He made it seem pretty clear that it was his way of saying PAHS or AGS.

Those terms refer to systems where you actually run tubes under the ground in an area protected against the flow of water, transferring heat from the air into the ground during warm periods and pulling it back out when the air is cooler than the ground. It's much more than just an earth bermed structure.

My understanding is that the pipes in the ground are not really a part of the heating so much to prevent heat loss while providing good fresh air. These pipes do not have to go under the house, but should have been put in before covering with dirt. This should not affect the ability to store/release heat properly, but may affect air quality... or may mean the fresh air feels a bit "fresh". It will be interesting to see. I expect the air quality will not be any worse than the average new home (aside from the modern material off gassing), but it could be better. In my opinion, modern standards for fresh air refresh are much less than they should be.... I would rather wear a sweater.

Anyway, air is a poor heat transfer medium... and where would it get hot enough to be useful? The PAHS designs I have seen have a south facing windowed off part that allows the sun's radiation to directly heat the ground in a portion of the house that is allowed to get overly warm in the summer to help bring the earth mass temperature average within the comfort zone. Using air flow to do that would require very warm air and probably something to move that air... not passive.

Peter Ellis wrote:Net - this is a small earth bermed log cabin with a passive solar design.

Peter,

This is false. I would like to ask that you please do not present false information as fact.

When you are confused about what is in my head or when pictures of the truth confuse you, I would like to ask that you present your confusion as questions to gain clarity rather than presenting false information as fact.

Tyler Flaumitsch wrote:I was under the impression that you were going to point the gable end of the structure south to be able to replicate the terraced idea out the larger front and to see what the solar gain would be.

Wofati is aligned with the hill.

Passive solar structures are aligned with the sun.

This will be an attempt to demonstrate the power of annualized thermal inertia. So we are specifically NOT aligning this with the sun. I suppose that some folks will select building spots so they can have both. But for the first one, we had the discussion and I decided that I needed to find out the power of ATI without any additional help from the sun.

How do you plan on measuring performance?

I think we need to build some experience before we can measure performance.

For this first year: we are moving the dirt/soil during very cold temperatures. So the whole structure will start cold. I'm not sure how valuable the information will be from the first year.

~ That is so cool! Great photos. I can't help but think of how many man-hours it took to peel all those logs. You guys did an awesome job of fitting them. How scary now to put all that dirt on top, but what great timing. Winter is just about on us in the Pacific Northwest. Congrats to you, Paul Wheaton, on having such a dependable community of souls to make this all happen. Happy wofati'ing!

> cold dirt...

Ah, hadn't pegged that. Obvious once you set it out there.

FWIW I took "earth bermed log cabin..." as a point brought forward to be clarified. Which seems to have been done. <g>


Cheers

Rufus