Geoff Buddle

Hi, the easiest system I have seen to date is already described in a previous reply, a water source run through a good length of copper coil which is sitting in/routed through a rocket stove heated barrel of water. The "heat reservoir barrel" has a large blow-off valve/opening, large enough that the water can be boiled with no risk of pressure build-up. 30 minute firing with enough reserve heat for 30 showers I think it was. Going to look... Found it! Geoff Lawton video, part of the farm tour video that's posted.

The video mentions a old Chinese method of under floor heating, Roman bath houses did much the same (hypocaust?)... but really, looks nice enough and could be finished in any style like a masonry heater. Can't recommend enough the Passive Annual Heat Storage book by John Hait, its so well illustrated that I joke you don't need to speak/read English (or American) to understand it. Transportative heat-loss (covered in the book) would refer to the water that runs through to the shower and removes heat from the reservoir, convective heat-loss prevention should be easy, and conductive heat-loss can be reduced by appropriate material use. Where we are, we'd need two, one inside for winter and one out for summer. When I get my variation of earth-bag building tested on a 12'x20' PAHS greenhouse, I'll have a suitable testing area for summer use and excess heat management. The PAHS greenhouse is so I can get domestic-scale citrus. (Two dwarf trees, Meyer-lemon likely, leave the fruit hanging till the ducks are laying and make lemon-curd. When made, stores like you would jam and though duck eggs are great for baking, I don't care to eat them scrambled or fried again.)
No need to wish you good luck, that's more of a curse telling someone they don't have a workable plan. And I'm guessing you're building a plan given your photos. May your hot water supply be ample, Live long and Prosper and all that.
Geoff

Oh my, forgot to bit about arid, and though there is now a lot on the web, I often find getting things from the horse's mouth the best (least heresay, misunderstanding contamination of the main idea...) http://www.waterright.com.au/ this is the origionator's site and I think it would work well in whatever climate contrlling enviroment you are doing, so why not EPDM liner (or some such, but we need freezing proof here) and fill lined pit with straw bales, some charcoal (little improvement over 10% I hear but not t all neccessary, a couple dozen fishing worms and have great soil in a year, all the worms you could want for fishing or nice diet balancing for some chickens and you water use minimized for climate situation. Have considered "pond" in basement for Bioponics (www.bioponics.ca) while harvesting attic collected heat to increase house thermal mass. Happy to flesh out ideas, just point me towards where the unknowns are and I'm happy to add my (mental) flashlight to the search.
Geoff

Hi Deb, those are some good sized Walpini's! First general question is, too many eggs in one basket? I put together an arch green house (www.notherngreenhouse.com) 11'x36' and when our hay was cut it had to be stored some where, so storage. 2/3 full of hay. the unfilled 1/3 collapsed under snow load, not well enough braced inside and the tarp not pulled tight enough allowed cupping and holding snow instead of shedding. Early spring a year ago a neighbour came by and chilled (dislikes winter, too) it was 10 deg. C outside, 35 deg. C inside, hence my passion of thermal mass. Cold enough at night to freeze my chicken eggs, warm enough to cause thermal death of those eggs, neither one good for hatching eggs. So, I'll snap a photo of the collapse, 6pcs.of 1/2' rebar to get shape back to what it should be.$200 in lumber / screws and something like a basement jack to tension tarp, tarp is fine to reuse, ends will be better framed and polycarbonate panels so its easier to see inside. Paddock fencing done (ALMOST) so collapse photo now and about 2 weeks I hope for reinvigorated photo. All site on heavy clay, lawn guy says ours is last he cuts when all others he does have dried up. Point being to get back to your thread, to small for hugel IMHO, 10lb. charcoal/$8 and have 55 gallon barrel vermicompost and rabbits (perfect worm food or if fully dried apply directly) for tea to charge charcoal, gonna combine all and solve a few problems at once. For main garden bed, gonna take trailer and pick up bags of leaves in fall that locals bag and leave out by curb and use leaf mold in green house. No leaf blower, job for chickens! Geoff Oh, forgot to mention other personal heros, Tommy Jefferson, Benny Franklin, Willie Smits http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/475 and William McDonough http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/104

Geoff

RMH, had to think about that for a second. Rocket Mass Heater, right... My mental reference is always Rocket Stove so didn't click for a second. Ok, there are these nice planters, about 2' tall, 1' square at base and 18" at the top. Nice and square for making a lid to protect the (home-made) firebrick from rain and moisture. Put the fire on and get the heat required for wok cooking.
But mainly, our code here stipulates that outdoor fireplaces be a minimum distance from the house. Besides a PAHS umbrella with a couple supplemental heating loops would make adjusting solar gain a snap, and as Ernie and Erica probably know, the authorities just love anything to do with combustion and confined spaces. One death by carbon monoxide poisoning equals a lot of profitable legislation. So if this about wanting heat, so get heat. IF, you have the space, IF your topography allows it, IF you are so adverse to cutting trees down at all and IF you can wait 2-3 years for you PAHS Heat reserve to warm, you can save $20-$40 not adding auxilliary heat dump loops and pay your regular heating costs (declining of course, as it warms) for the warm up time. Being patient enough to take a year or two to get setup so you never have to worry the rest of your life, priceless. But if you can make it work more how you like, why not? (Well look, Margret Atwood's talk, "Debt as Plot", works well with so many vices, just sub. in "Schedule" for "Debt", she's given a wonderful blueprint for self-reflection.) So how far can the fire be away from the house rather than how close? How far is the sun?
Hi, my concern is for getting a number of thoughts out quick before they get dropped, old age sucks. Now that I know what I wanna do, its gonna take me two or three times the time to do it!
Geoff

Hi, thanks for the reply. Ya, for the permitting in our area, our friends are licenced ICF installers and doing a basic basement (with south-facing) walk-out is pre-engineered and easy to permit. Adding PAHS should be eeeaaasssyyy (if you understand what mustn't be changed physics-wise) along with a separate loop to one of Ernie and Erica's rocket stoves so you can get it to operating temp. in year 1. If your ICF (Insulated Concrete Form) is 6" cavity, cut a bunch of 4" ABS pipe a grand total of 10" long. That should give you 10 per piece of ABS and should be enough for all your upper PAHS runs. Connect black ag-pipe (4") and don't crush it as you refill your thermal mass trenches. The PAHS book is so well illustrated, bet a Martian (no English) could get it right. Of course, he/she/it would have to read the darn thing first.
People are like horses, you can lead them to the fountain (of knowledge), but they have to want to drink!

"Happy husband, happy home."
"Happy wife, happy life."

Those old sayings, there's usually one for each point of view, but my favourite is from Hawaii-5-0, "Just the facts, man. Just the facts."
Geoff

Oh boy, I am doing my best to calm down. I'm getting tired of seeing red!

So here are my thoughts,

1) the designer does not live in his design

Didn't know, but why? Got a great price for his and has temporary residence while he builds his final? This is a harmful allusion and only does disservice to non-critical thinkers.

2) the claim is that they are warm in the winter - and apparently that is not true when you have just one cloudy day. I think that with a passive solar design, that is a well known issue although if somebody is claiming that it stays warm on a cloudy day, then it is fair to convey that many don't.

Sorry, but the obvious relevant missing facts are; 1. the Mike Reynolds built ones or a poorlydone knock-off by someone who bent too many essential variables in their build? 2. Was the complainer too lazy to put on a sweater because it was 18.0364 deg. celcius instead of 21 deg.? If permaculture is primarily a science-based design system, what was the measurement? Opinions are made of words and words are cheap, dude. Facts are golden.

3) the claim is that they are cool in the summer. Apparently not so.

See response to 2).

4) claims of eating from the greenhouse section which has been watered with greywater. Yeah, I have lots of problems with that.

You may have a problem with that, and that is likely the same "living-thing phobia" that allows our society to grow corn the way it does. The crap they make Kunstler's "cheese-doodles" from. Knowledge will set you free of your fears so learn what your bio-remediation requirements are and don't play with it like adding bloatware to make people think they need faster computers. (Si, yo hablo computadora, MCSE NT4., muchacho.)

5) Dennis Weaver built a mega-jumbo earthship, was videoed about how great it is, and then moved out because the off-gassing from the tires was making him sick.

Really? Because the DVD talked about a prof. that tested the used tires and the off gassing was nil, and with no UV to break down plastered tires? Of course there's that TED Talk guy (Mike McGrath) who talks about (North) Americans and their leaf blowers and SPB's (Stupid People Bags). On top of that, one can't get tires easy in Ontario (proper disposal plus a fee of course has them tied up, freecycling be gone.) So fine, hyperadobe actually would work out cheaper in my opinion (note the qualification? My opinion, if I am wrong its my reputation/ass on the line.)

6) apparently the cost is far more than a conventional home.
See # 2) and add, look dude, I was at a Green Neighbours 21 meet-up a while ago and an attendee mentioned a relative was costing $2600 (CDN) to keep in long term storage (aka Retirement Home) so like cooking, if you can make Vermicelli noodle Singapore-style yourself, $4, buy at restaurant $9. If I need someone wipe up after me, $2600/month. If you need someone else to build your house, they gotta eat and its gonna cost and like food, if you didn't grow it yourself, how ya gonna know what's in it and how to fix it to boot, so much for being able to look after yourself, that's gotta violate a fundamental Permaculture principle. For shame, Paul, for shame.

And that last line, didn't Billy Mollison say something like this in his 1983 PDC, "Hope is a most desperate word. It indicates that you have no plan and therefore must rely on hope."

And finally, when I heard you complaining about Holzer not answering the question you really wanted on one of your podcasts. Dude, he was telling the answer, or as Shauberger's family motto put it, "Observe and Comprehend." It dripped of North American "the customer is always right" ideology. What he was giving you back indirectly was, "I can't give you the answer, only you can find yours." This guy'll help, https://archive.org/details/1OnSavingTime_201402 and https://archive.org/details/ofpeaceofmind_1105_librivox

Feel free to contact me after you've listened to at least the first one, but not before, eh? My time is very precious to me, got an earthship to build.
Geoff (PDC from PIEO, taken in Ottawa, Canada)

FYI, personal heros; Bill Mollison, Dave Holmgren, Sepp Holzer, Allan Savory, Geoff and Nadia Lawton, Vandana Shiva, Toby Hemenway and you for doing your best. If I can help you be a better you, ("To be human is to serve your fellow human") how may I serve? And as Johnny said, "We don't do these things (help Paul) because they are easy, we do them..." sorry, I forget the rest, but its on archive.org too.

May you Live Long and Prosper,
Geoff