Raymond Liljeros

Thank you Aaron for all this information, so kind.

The discussion about passiv solar design if very interesting.
It is all about negociation of what you essentially seek for.
I guess you cannot have the cake and eat it on the same time !

Skinny windows mounted just below ceiling height along the whole north and south sides of the house
that is a great idea. In our house today I installed with a very courageous mason a window just below
my roof on the south side. 2 triangles and yes, during the winter season it is amazing how much light
and also warmth when sunny, this window lets through.

Your earth sheltered house is a very good idea but after showing it to my wife,
hmmm, she says I would have to find someone else to live with in such a house
but this is obviously a very good idea. Perhaps I can find a land up in the
Pyrénées and buld a tiny house like this and go there when it is to hot
I actually have a friend who is looking into this option.

Another a bit crazy idea I have had, I like experimenting

is to create a wall heating system and then during the winter  season
I could let the plastic water tube run about 100 yards inside a freezer ?

I wonder how that would come out ?
I am sure someone somewhere tried it already.

Hallo all geniouses.

For the heating of a house during winter days without sun,
today we have a big 7000 pounds mass stove which
works great.

But as we get older, my wife and I am looking for something more easy.

I heard about windows heating by radiation and that those
windows would be almost like a mass stove in terms of confort.

Has anyone here installed such windows ?

Here is an explanation :

https://www.gw-news.eu/glass/electric-heating-glass-heating-element-how-does-it-work

Dear Aaron.
Thank you so much for explaning all this to me, a newcomer and beginner.
All I have today is what I read and some earth and straw workshops.
In 2025 I hope to beging my house, only 66 years young !

Today I live in a concrete house with hugh windows and bays east west,
the opposite of what you and everyone recommends
However the west wall is shaded by big oak trees and the eat has a veranda so
the sun does not hit the inner walls.

However I took away the ceiling when we moved into the house and I changed the
roof insulation with now 12 inches of wood fiber to protect agains the heat.
The double roof, yes, that is a very good idea, thank you.

The funny thing is that when I read about all these very ecological houses on the net,
during a heat swell, they talk about 79°F.
This is what I have in my home today with 100°F outside this week.
So it seems to me that we cannot do much naturally to improve the temperatures
when the night stays around 70-74°F.

From what I understand, the real heavy beautiful cob is only good for areas
where the night temperatures drop substantially. I also did a rammed earth
workshop but althogh quite easy technically, it is heavy work.

I wonder if I should make my futur houses walls of slipclay and woodchips
20 inches thick to give it the best ? or would that not really do anything agains
the summer heat ?

So you are right from what I also read about your recommendations for est/west,
openings to the south for the winter however, I am not so keen on large overhead
protections because you loose the light into the house during the in between seasons.
I would rather come up with some temporary shading structures for the only 3 months
of the summer here, mid-june to mid-september, and then let all the sun into the house.
The large overhead protections will interfere with sun striking into the house in late
april-may and late september-october.  

Another idea I have is to install for best light inside the house during the off season,
big west and east windows and also big roof windows, VELUX and construct during
the hot season some custom made "double insulation"
to put on top of these windows and roof VELUX because the standard outside VELUX
shade is not efficient enough and also very expensive.

Thank you for the air conditionning recommendation but oh, I don't like it
but you are right, this might be an option when getting older

Perhpaps I should just dig a big underground room in the garden where I can go
and stay when afternoons goes into the 120°F, luckily we are not there yet !

And you are right, the only natural cooling possibility that we have is the
underground but the land is flat where I will build so I think that this is not an option,
otherwise it must be a great option to put parts of the house underground.  
The canadien or provencial well would be another possibility
but it is rather complicated to maintain, and I wonder about humidity coming up
into the house from such a well as this installation gets older,

Thank you so much for your input, this is a great forum.

Best Regards, Raymond

Thank you so much.
In Germany I hear and read that woodchips are being used
since about 20 years, but as I try to figure this out, perhaps
it is all about how much wooden framework is being used
to hold the walls and building together ?
Using less framework would then work for sraw
and using much more would work for woodchips and sawdust.
I also read that woodchips and clayslip dries out quicker
and that one can make 20 inches thick walls to keep the heat out,
my main concern.

Hallo everyone. I am new here, living in the southwest of France.
I would like to begin a discussion about how to have a cool house
when temperatures arise and stay hot even during the night ?

Cob houses in the desert are great because at night the temperature
goes down, sometimes around 50°F, but a couple of years ago in
Vancouver, it stayed high high for weeks with not much lower temperatures
at night,  and it does so as well here in the south of Europe as well.

So my question is, should I go thermal mass or insulation.

Should I build a classic cob house ? Some people say that when the heat
stays high 24h/24h, the cob house will end up being like an oven !

These same people say that I should in such a case go light on thermal mass,
perhaps only some inside walls, and do the exterior walls of insulated stuff
like clayslip and woodchips ?

I assume that there must be some exeprience about this somewhere.

Have a wonderful day, here in France it is already past bedtime
Raymond

Hallo everyone.

I see and read that woodchips and sawdust
are much more easier for light earth buildings
than with straw.  

Easier to mix, Easier to pour into the frame, and so on.

Are there any pitfalls about
sawdust or woodchips instead of straw ?

Thank you. Raymond