THE HELIO THERMICS SOLAR-HEATED AND -COOLED HOUSE

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THE LITTLE "BLACK BOX"

All very well and good. It's easy to see how the Helio Thermics house can capture hot air in its attic on a sunny winter day (or cold air on a cool August night) and then either blow that air into the structure's living quarters or down into its rock storage area for use at a later time. But it's also easy to see that the mere switching of vents and louvers and dampers could soon turn into a full-time job for someone.

("Let's see now. I'm collecting excess Btu's in the attic and the house is cold so I'll pump some heat from the attic to the living area. Whoops! Too much. Better switch a little down to the storage pit. Wait a minute! A cloud just went in front of the sun . . . shift all the warmth we can collect to the house again. Yes . . . NO! Too much. Maybe if we . . . on the other hand . . . WAIT A MINUTE!!!")

So the Grangers built a full-time "someone"—an electronic control unit—right into their house to continuously take care of this chore. The "solid state black box" is about as big and as complex as a small TV set and, just like most modern color TV's, has removable curcuit boards for easy service and repair. "Unlike the average `boob tube', however," say the Grangers, "our black box is designed to work darn near forever."

The control unit (actually a mini-computer) constantly monitors the temperature in five locations: [1] the Helio Thermic building's collector/attic, [2] the structure's living area, [3] the central portion of the rock storage pit, [4] the outer edges of the storage area, and [5] the atmosphere surrounding the house. With this continually updated information always "in mind", it then decides which heating or cooling source and what mode of operation (there are eight modes) will most economically keep the building's living space at the temperature set on the black box's console dial.

As it deems necessary, the control unit will [1] heat the house with Btu's drawn down from its attic or [2] stash those therms away in the storage pit below. Then again, it may decide [3] to pull some of that collected warmth back up out of crushed stone and distribute it to the structure's living area. It may even [4] tap into a very small supplemental source of heat to augment the solar collection and storage system during unusually long periods of overcast weather.

The control unit can also [5] cool the building with outside air or [6] cache some of that coolness in the storage bin. And it can [7] make the decision to draw collected cold air from the storage area under the house and blow it into the living space, or even [8] distribute the output of a regular air conditioner.

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