Passive Annual Heat Storage: Improving the Design of Earth Sheltered Homes

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BACK-TO-BASICS: UNDERSTANDING HEAT FLOW

Passive annual heat storage leads us to reexamine our basic thinking on heat flow and on the use of earth as a practical thermal storage medium. At the same time, it dramatically widens the horizons of passive solar energy, which for centuries has been hobbled by the fact that the sun wasn't out when work needed to be done.

Now, not only can homes be situated in a constant-temperature environment that will never need auxiliary heating, but the same principles can also be applied to help keep houses cool in hot climates. Or, if a separate 40-to-60-foot ball of earth were insulated and heated with high temperature collectors during the summer, it could provide a year-round—and free —supply of solar-heated domestic hot water. At higher temperatures—say, the 300°F levels possible from parabolic solar collectors—a source of steam for power generation could even be contained in an insulated heat-storage "ball." And, at the other end of the scale, heat could be spilled in the winter from an insulated mass to form a year-round passive refrigerator.

In short, it now is evident that solar technology no longer need be hamstrung by the earth's 22-1/2° tilt: Passive annual heat storage truly takes solar energy out of the dark seasons... and probably out of the dark ages, as well!

EDITOR'S NOTE: John Hait's book Passive Annual Heat Storage: Improving the Design of Earth Shelters (available for $14.95 from Rocky Mountain Research Center, P.0. Box 4694, Missoula, MT 59806) goes into more depth on the construction aspects of PAHS in its 152 pages.

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