Cob: Thermal mass works, PAHS works, Insulation works

[Darel Henman]

Amanda,

Amanda Peck wrote:
> But not necessarily under equal circumstances. 

Your sentence above is too obtuse to me.  I suppose you mean to consider
you climate, design, etc. and such common sense sort of stuff?

But, thanks for reiterating many of my points.   Here's a little more
amplificatoin for you on points that still seem unclear to you. 

> Seems like I've heard the
> Passive Annual Heat Storage people saying it takes a year or so to get the
> building working right.

Seems like you got what I wrote right, but, the term "working right" is
not appropriate.  
As I said in my mail, such a large amount of thermal mass will take a
long time to charge/heat (also discharge) and may take one to two years
to reach the most desirable condition.  The first year would still offer
superior performance to not having the mass charged.

> 
> Three points.
> a) My friends with the (uninsulated) high thermal mass house would probably
> laugh at you both.
I doubt it.  I lived in just such a place.

> It takes a lot more than an hour with a little
> resistance heater to heat up the walls in the basement.
You are only reiterating what I wrote.  It will take a long time to heat
a lot of mass.  So use the free solar energy in the summer to begin
heating it up.

> You have to get them heated a couple of inches in. You are not, after an hour or so, trying
> to heat up the soil outside  And if in addition you have plenty of solar
> gain--through the windows, through the greenhouse via a blower, you can
> survive most any (Tennessee) winter with only a few fires in the fireplace.
The house I lived in didn't even need a fireplace.  A simple verticle
wall gas heater was there, but I don't remeber ever using it.  Maybe
after a shower or something like that.

> They keep telling us--closing in on ad nauseum--how warm their house was
> when they got up--and how they need to have a fire in the wood-stove in the
> community center--even if the rest of us are pretty comfortable. 

I wonder what they did wrong.  Seems strange that the center as you
describe it would be colder than the outer side rooms.

The place I stayed at in the winter like I said did not need a
fireplace.   The winter temps get to around 24 degrees F, in the area I
am speaking of.

> house-sat at their house, and three or four days of mostly pretty cloudy--or
> the insulating curtains drawn--and their house is still only around 63
> degrees.

63 deg. F sounds pretty good, depending on what the outside temp was. 
But, I was talking about something using much more mass that what you
are talking about.

> 
> b) I've already posted this once here today.  IANTO SAYS (therefore it's
> true!!!!)  that cob, and by extension anything that depends on thermal mass,
> is probably not the best material for a building that isn't occupied and
> heated one way or another, most of the time--like Drew's basement.

What is this "isn't occupied" you wrote above?  If it is unoccupied who
cares what temp it's at?  However, if you want to store important items
or books or food and grains, then Ianto's wrong.  The humidy and
temperature stabilizing qualities of cob enable books, and foods to be
stored far better than stick houses that get hot in the day and cold at
night, and do not stabilize humidity.  You may wish to confirm with with
Ianto, but I say this is so, based on measured data of eathen walled
storage structures.

The focus here is houses that will be occumpied, here Amanda, and that
storing energy in thermal mass for the winter is a very, very energy
efficient thing to do.  And if the house is designed right, the charging
can be done for free, and even when the house is unoccupied, say when
you go on a vacation.  Ianto was talking about a free standing cob house
which was not using the soil beneath it for storing thermal energy.  Do
yo understand this difference? 

> Insulation and quick heating qualities do count in this case.
Only if you are not occupying the house and come home after a long
absense and don't care about saving energy.  So be smart and heat it up
when you have an excess free solar energy.
 
You'll never get quick heating qualities in a cob home.  You have to be
patient and it will charge up.  But afterwards it'll be on cruise speed.

> 
> c) the thermal mass gurus (maybe including Evans) assure us that if you had
> for some reason (smoke from steaks, or whatever) to replace all the air
> currently in your home, the insulated stick-built building would take a lot
> longer to get back to a comfortable temperature than the high thermal mass
> building.

The heated thermal mass radiates heat out to you continually, regardless
of the temperature of air between you and it. 

Cheers,
  Darel