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Oh yeah it works, have you ever been in Maine on a sunny day and watched snow melt in areas that have not been salted or improved in any way? It is a common misconception that solar power in the winter is diminished...that is not true. Due to the angle of the sun, the purity of the air, and the outside temps, solar power is actually stronger in the winter then in the summer. What limits it, is the length of daylight per day.
I had an uncle you, many years ago, designed a solar energy system to use on his house in NW Iowa. He was a retired nuclear physicist, so he definitely had the brain power. He also had it all figured out and laid out.
He built a 2-car attached garage with a unique roof angle (I think it was 30 degrees on the north and 60 degrees on the south) in order to maximize the panels' exposure to the sun.
His goal wasn't electricity. He simply wanted hot air to pipe down into a 12'x12'x12' vault filled with 3" rocks. He had it calculated that during the day the solar-warmed air would make those rocks hot enough to, in turn, heat his house for quite awhile during the night time.
Unfortunately, he never finished the project. I honestly don't know why.
Even so, I've often thought of the practical, realistic possibilities of building something like that.
In a vacuum heat does not transfer like at atmospheric pressure. So the commercial products use vacuum sealed tubes, with copper sulfate that transfers the heat even in very cold days.
I often thought you could replicate this in a home-built way, but working with total vacuum is daunting.
BTW Omaha Rocks...I have 400 tons of big rocks under my house as well. Its is used just as you say, as a heat sink.
In a vacuum heat does not transfer like at atmospheric pressure. So the commercial products use vacuum sealed tubes, with copper sulfate that transfers the heat even in very cold days.
I often thought you could replicate this in a home-built way, but working with total vacuum is daunting.
BTW Omaha Rocks...I have 400 tons of big rocks under my house as well. Its is used just as you say, as a heat sink.
Cool. How did you arrive at the decision to do that? And does it work for you? Are you achieving the savings you had hoped for?
I see a lot fo solar talk coming from the sunny climes, but does anyone have experience with solar power in say maine?
We have two neighbors that are both off-grid.
Both use wind and solar. I have only spoken at length with one of them. He hates his windmill. In fact he owns two windmills, but refuses to setup the second unit.
On a sunny day, it takes 3 hours to fully charge his battery bank. On an overcast day it takes 6 hours.
I see a lot fo solar talk coming from the sunny climes, but does anyone have experience with solar power in say maine?
Solar can be done in NE. You may want more panels than someone in, say, the Southwest might use, to make up for the number of cloudy days. You'd also definately want wind power too for the long stretches of cloudy, gray days in winter, which are also often fairly windy. And of course a generator for backup.
i am interested in wind power, but i heard there are "minimum distance from other structures" type ordinances or something like that.
can you have windpower in the suburbs?
as a typical rule of thumb, your turbine must be 30' min. away from any structure, this is not a code issue. It is however a requirement for the turbines to work effectively. There is turbulence created when wind move around structures that may interfere with the turbine. In addition, you need to have a consistent 10mph wind to be effective, bursts of wind hurt, not help. We have spec'd out a few for our clients, but being in Colorado, solar is much more effective (that is what they ultimately went with)
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