JOSEPH ORR'S FABULOUS "MUD HEAT-STORAGE" SOLAR GREENHOUSE

Enlarge Image Image Gallery TOP ROW: It all started with a 9'-deep by 6-1/2'-wide by 15'-long hole in the ground . . . which was then lined with 3"" of polystyrene insulation .., and covered with waterproof black plastic. SECOND ROW: Joseph Orr and his son Jason next put alternating layers of dirt (each of which was soaked thoroughly with water after it was shoveled into place) and loops of 3""heat exchanger plastic pipe into the excavation . . . and framed in the inlet/outlet ends (and the ends only) of the plastic loops with temporary forms so that concrete could be poured around them. LEFT: A 6"" X 10"" continuous concrete footing was also poured in place around the base of the Orrs' greenhouse . . . and, once a low cement-block wall had been laid on that footing, another 3"" of polystyrene insulation (the same as in the pit) was placed against the inside of the block wall. BELOW: After insulating the top of the hotmud bin with 6"" of foam insulation, more black plastic was then laid down to cover and isolate the area inside the low foundation . . . anal enough topsoil, horse manure, and compost were hauled in to fill the interior of the greenhouse level full to the top of the foundation wall. Construction of the actual greenhouse was then begun over this efficient heat storage bin.

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Here's a low-cost ($5.00 per square foot) solar greenhouse that not only heats itself, but provides a good deal of the space heat for an adjoining 28' X 40' building .. and keeps a Laramie, Wyo., family in fresh vegetables year round besides!

Here in Laramie—high on the steppes of Wyoming, in America's own Outer Mongolia—we have a very short growing season," Joseph Orr explains. "Some folks say it's sixty days long. I think they're wrong. Last year it was only ten or twenty days. In any case, my wife and I have tried to garden here for thirty years . . . with no success. We've always been hampered by such things as snowstorms in the middle of June . . . and July . . . and August . . . and September.

"At last, though, we've achieved gardening success! Our annual growing season now runs a full 365 days. . . thanks to the solar greenhouse that my daughters, son, and wife helped me build. Even with snow on the ground, we can raise beautiful crops of tomatoes, beans, squash, broccoli, spinach, turnips, peas, and corn. Our greenhouse has turned a 14' X 30' patch of Outer Mongolia into a 14' X 30' patch of Florida!"

If Joseph Orr sounds like a happy man, he is . . . for two reasons. Not only has he [1] solved the vexing problem of how to grow vegetables year round in frigid Laramie, Wyoming (elevation: 7,165 feet) . . . but he's [2] pioneered a whole new concept in underground heat storage (one that any would-be solar heating system builder would do well to look into).

The concept that Orr (aided by his two daughters, one son, and wife Amelia) has pioneered is called wet-dirt storage (also dubbed the Solterra system by Solar Energy Digest editor William Edmondson) . . . and it's what allows the Orr greenhouse to derive not 70%, not 80%, but 100% of its total heating needs from Ole Sol.

A NEW WAY OF STORING HEAT: MUD

Three years ago—when Joe Orr began to sketch out the design of his 420-square-foot solar conservatory—almost no information existed on the feasibility of using wet earth as a heat-storage medium . . . and no one (to Joe's knowledge) had actually built a solar heating system around a wet-dirt-type storage setup. (At that time—as now—most "active" solar heating installations employed large quantities of either water or rocks for heat storage.)

That, however, didn't keep Joe Orr from [1] digging a 9'-deep by 6-1/2'-wide by 15'-long trench where the solar conservatory was to be built, [2] lining the hole with plastic (and 3" of polystyrene insulation), [3] laying a series of "heat exchange" pipes in the excavated area, and [4] filling the pit with 878 cubic feet of water-saturated earth.

Nor did it keep Joe—when the time came—from covering the mud-storage bin with 6" of polystyrene and two feet of garden soil, constructing a 14' X 30' greenhouse over the bin, putting a 6' X 30' airhandling solar collector above the conservatory, and running air ducts between the collector and the mud bin's "heat exchange" pipes.

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