h a l f b a k e r yThe leaning tower of Piezo
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First time poster - be verbose in any advice/criticisms
Plan is to have all the benefits of high thermal mass
wall
in a light weight tiny home. Incorporate 90mm (1)
standard plumbing in the walls and fill with water
gathered from the roof. When you need to move, simply
drain the water.
(2)
Challenges...
Supporting the weight.
Use a horzointal manifold and vertical pipe sections
supported by the stud frame wall. If the fittings are too
expensive, then just a snake pattern. These are then
supported by extra wind down legs standard on
caravan
etc. (3)
Freezing in winter and bursting pipes.
Insulation on the outside, and living on the inside
should
mean it never happens. An emergency water heater
and a
easily accessed weak point would reduce this risk.
Leaks after transport breaks things.
Having closed cell foam under the fragile parts, and
removable panels, plus the base drains outside to an
inspection tube to make leaks obvious. Not worked out
yet but like a window sill or brick wall should always
drain
outside
The water getting nasty
Put some antifungal additive. (4)
Stretch goals
Add in a standard solar hot water heating panel as the
roof of the tiny home, and tiny solar pump to heat water
on cold days. Already have these.
Add low pressure cheap poly pipe coiled under the
home
in the shade to cool it down on hot nights. Already have
these as solar collectors but should work as radiator in
the shade just as well.
3 temp sensors and two cheap pumps to keep temp in
walls comfy.
Just landed a job where we have heaps of these sorts
of
things and the cheap mini computers to drive it.
I've a background in building things that work, and have
most of these concepts prototyped, but trying out this
website for advice and and to help foresee any gotchas
I've missed. LOve to hear what you think, as well as
typing
this out helped me get my ideas sorted a bit more.
I live in Canberra which has weeks over 40 degrees C
during the day, and months below 0 overnight, and
wasting our resources on heating and cooling is kinda
lame.
( 1 ) Pipe
https://www.google....gC&biw=1920&bih=969
Link to plumbing pipe pics [WaffleWizard, Apr 09 2019]
( 2 )Pipes as water storage
https://i.ytimg.com...c/maxresdefault.jpg
Link to pic of the pipes used as water storage [WaffleWizard, Apr 09 2019]
( 3 ) Support legs
https://i.ebayimg.c...NDJaerVO/s-l640.jpg
Link to pic of support legs [WaffleWizard, Apr 09 2019]
( 4 ) water treatment
https://nwsolutions...ter-tank-treatment/
Link to water treatment [WaffleWizard, Apr 09 2019]
Stirling Home System
Stirling Home System
linked as per anno in regards operating a heat pump [zen_tom, Apr 10 2019]
http://www.halfbakery.com/lr/
http://www.halfbakery.com/lr/
The lo-res version of the Halfbakery [hippo, Apr 11 2019]
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Annotation:
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Welcome to the HB ; bathroom's down the hall on the left ; fill up the coffeemaker if you're the last one to take a cup, and //be verbose in any advice or criticism// isn't something that's ever been a worry... unless you're insisting on *useful* advice/criticism. |
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The amount I know about thermal-mass could be fit into a small tea cup, but it occurs that you might consider putting the storage tank on the ground under the house and utilizing "infloor" heating or whatever they call it, rather than adding a tonne/m³ onto the tires. |
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Welcome to the Halfbakery! The thermal mass would be enormous. Dividing the walls into cells would stop heat dissipation through convection currents, and also reduce the amount your house would fill up with water when you drill holes in the wall to put up some shelves. |
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I guess the question is how you want to balance thermal
mass and insulation - water-filled walls would be very bad
insulators. In the UK, this would be a problem because on
average we need to heat houses but seldom cool them, but
in climates with big daily temperature fluctuations either
side of "comfortable", it might make more sense. |
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What would be neat is if you could have two layers of pipes
with insulation sandwiched between them. Then, in the
early morning, a pump could "swap" the cold outside water
for the warm inside water to cool the house during the day.
At night, it would do the reverse, bringing sun-warmed
water to the inner layer to keep the house warm. |
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Is the Pope going to deliver this hot mass or do you
want someone like me to come and do it? I have all
the gear: robes, wands, incantations etc |
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Thanks for the welcome FlyingToaster. |
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Now, is this how to reply... |
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The thermal mass needs to be inside the insulation, so it
would need to have a layer of something down first, then
the tank on top, then allow air to circulate around that
tank and up into the house. Possible. |
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There wouldn't be much weight going through the tires as
the wind down support legs fitting to these thing would
take the weight. |
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Good to think it through and explain it. Thanks |
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Dividing the walls into cells to reduce heat
dissipation? Do
you mean standard insulation? I have a 40mm
Styrofoam that
I am planning on putting between the outer skin of
corrugated iron, and the thermal mass. And yep, will
add
the risk of drilling into the pipes. You shouldn't be
drilling
into walls you don't know too much anyway as
electrocution
is a higher risk. |
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Thanks for the welcome MaxwellBuchanan, this place
seems to get a better reply than spam filled FB. |
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Yes, water filled walls is terrible insulation. The role is
thermal mass. In my part of the world people regularly
use heaters and aircon in the same week. Not being near
the coast means temperature fluctuation are quite high.
If you are almost always heating only, you just want thick
insulation. |
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your idea of inner and outer water is similar to my stretch
goal. The solar collector on the roof is ideal at getting the
heat out of the sun and into water. The glass and painted
black and the pipes are already built and I picked up
about 6 square meters of them for free. The under floor
pipes to shed the excess heat probably isn't going to
impress someone in a cold climate, but basically the idea
is similar |
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Xenag
pope pope nope... did I make a typo? |
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Humans do produce a lot of heat, so if you feel the need to
come and party hard in the middle of winter in a tiny home
in a forest in Australia, bring a few snags and you are
welcome |
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Wow - numbered citations too! The force is strong in this
one. |
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// this place seems to get a better reply than spam filled
FB// "better" is a very subjective term. What tends to
happen is that after about the first ten annotations, the
discussion will be sidetracked to snowglobes/firearms/my
relatives, after which it's the devil's own job to get it back
on track. On the plus side, you do get a better class of
digression here. |
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If only you had thought of using the water in the
walls storage system to ferment beer...... Begins
discussion on the merits of making beer in cavity
walls. |
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If you're using water-filled walls as thermal mass, it seems a huge missed opportunity not to also make the walls out of glass and stock them with tropical fish. |
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Thanks [zenzag], I am now thinking of tanked walls as yeast gyms. |
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Welcome to the halfbakery! |
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You could shjoodge up your system by having the water flow along pipes set into the
walls, and have these pipes lead down to the bottom of the garden and into a large
heat exchanger sunk deep in the soil or a pond. |
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That way, you can, over the hot summer months, pipe excess heat into storage, and
then in the winter, reverse the process and directly heat the walls. You're increasing
the overall thermal mass of the system, and by arranging it in such a way that which
one is hotter/colder in any given season presents an opportunity to take advantage
of the difference. |
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The temperature gradients aren't going to be massive, but should be enough to be
noticeable, and all for zero fuel consumption (other than that required for operating
a gentle pump - see Stirling Home System (linked) for a way of potentially removing
this last energy requirement). |
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I have a system of heating in my house where heated water travels around in pipes, periodically entering chambered metal oblong containers that sit flush against the walls. |
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There is one potential problem with having cooled walls, and
that's condensation. Air conditioners produce a steady trickle
of water. |
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Exactly [xenzag] now imagine living in a hot country
where those oblong thingies not only heat the house
in winter, but also provide active cooling in the
summer (subject to [Max]'s point re condensation -
though that's manageable using clever drip guidance),
all
without paying for gas or electric to heat/cool the
water in the boiler. |
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Nice. I am playing around with a design for a greenhouse where the entire framework, built from black ABS pipe, is filled with water and acts as a Heat-sink to radiate at night while adding no extra shade or taking up space better suited to plants. (+) |
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This place is freakin awesome! ! |
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I am at work so won't reply properly yet except to
stear the conversion towards tropical fish wall. I do
have the glass door from an old bank and its about
15mm thick and hardened. Could use that
somehow. |
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And the European idea of hanging bottles of hot
water? Link to any pics? |
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The underground thermal mass is a solid one and is
used. I separately have a 1000 litter tank as part of
the thermal mass of a shed I am turning into
something more liveable. The tiny home idea is that
it can be moved. Draining the water at one place
then filling up at the nexy and keeping the whole
thing under 2500kg which is my towing limit. |
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//This place is freakin awesome! !// We do our simple best. |
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//hanging bottles of hot water?// I believe it's possible that
[xen] was referring to radiators. |
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How is the water heater? I presume there is some
boiler as part of this system? |
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My idea is to gather the heat required during a cold
night from the a hot day a week ago. Where I live is
inland, so often the temp goes up and down a lot. |
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//This place is freakin awesome! !
I am at work//
A tip for you - to make your Halfbakery habit less obvious at work, use "halfbakery.com/lr/" (see link) |
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Some bright spark will think of putting custard in the walls. |
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To hide websites in general at work, there's an extension for at least Chrome and Firefox called Decreased Productivity that makes webpages very plain-looking. I recommend turning on its "sticky" option so that new tabs you open from links are also made plain-looking. |
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I used to do thermal mass calculations in my youth for
building energy compliance reviews. This is a neat idea to
think about but you've clearly stated the problems
yourself. Water would have to complete with concrete
that needs no maintenance. |
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Some of the problems you've pointed out could be solved
by just having a "water floor". Just a body of water in a
pool like structure with the house having a transmissive
floor in contact with the water. |
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You'd get plenty of passive cooling and heating from that,
no need to deal with leaky, stinky walls. Plus having no
exposure to sunlight and night cold it would retain a more
stable temperature. Might be other reasons to have lots
of water stored for drinking, etc. |
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Bun for an interesting idea. Welcome to the HB. |
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Someone has to say it. Add some starch instead of removing the water for a non-neutonian crash barrier during travel. |
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Sturton's house has a large thermal mass of liquid in the
cellars. Last tally was 3007 bottles plus a few dozen
magnums. As a bonus, the thermal mass can be drunk, as can
Sturton. |
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Actually, come to think of it, Sturton is a pretty big thermal
mass himself. |
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Cons
Custard is expensive by the ton.
It's how you get ants
Doesn't flow that well. |
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doctorremulac3
Thanks for the bun. I shall learn more what that
means and start sharing them about, but it seems a
good thing for sure.
You make good points but mostly highlight that I
haven't made clear the main restriction that water is
getting past which is weight. I can only tow 2500kg
and most designs are over that already. |
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So... you tow empty, and fill when you're where you're going to be staying for a while. If you want to haul the water with you then a lower center of mass is more beneficial otherwise dump the weight. Water is relatively easy to come by. |
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It falls from the sky, or free from a tap, but most
importantly, it's easy to pump. |
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Can't tow full as design already at weight limit |
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