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General: earth houses

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    • CommentAuthorGavin_A
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2012
     
    I'm just watching a grand designs where they're building an earth ship style house in an old sand stone quarry, so all but one wall face is going to be buried in the earth.

    so far so good, but then they've just shown them putting in 300mm of pir insulation below the floor, and are saying they're planning to do the same all round the building.

    This seems to be missing the entire point of earth houses as I understood them, in that they used the thermal mass and insulating properties of the surrounding earth to maintain them at a steady temperature year round, with heat input mainly from a south facing glazed wall.

    They seem to be putting a highly insulated low thermal mass box and inserting it in the ground. Basically missing the entire point of the excercise. or am I missing something?
    • CommentAuthorGavin_A
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2012
     
    ah, forget the low thermal mass bit, they're banging in 300mm layer of concrete on top of the 300mm insulating layer.

    Low impact this isn't,it looks like they're building a nuclear bunker or something.
    • CommentAuthorGavin_A
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2012
     
    15 year energy payback as well (presumably that's vs a standard building regs house), which they seem to think is actually good - it's supposed to be an eco house.

    very odd.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2012
     
    Was that the old programme from a few years ago in Cumbria?

    If so, then it was a design disaster, IMHO. If the architect had even glimpsed at some of the core principles for an ES house before designing the thing they'd have had a far better house at the end, I'm sure. IIRC they (or rather their architect) made the fundamental error of making the house too deep, resulting in rather dark rooms at the rear. I believe the whole house was somewhat over-specified in terms of structure, as the loads on the walls weren't that great as the thing was near the top of a hill and cut into solid stone.

    I looked long and hard at building an ES house for a few years, and although the BESA is, to all intents and purposes, dormant, if not actually dead, the wealth of experience that some of the pioneers, like Arthur Quarmby, collected is still thankfully archived on the BESA website. Accessing it is a bit of a pain for non-BESA members, but worth the trouble if you're interested in how ES homes have evolved here. My interest was both from the perspective of getting good performance and also because ES has the potential to address some planning related issues in a sensitive location (and if the chap would sell me the land I've had my eye on for several years I'd most probably build one myself!).
    • CommentAuthorEd Davies
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2012 edited
     
    Does sound like the Cumbrian vets' house - with the separate vets place in front?

    The Hockerton houses are similar: lots of insulation (300 mm of polystyrene?), earth bermed on the outside, lots of concrete on the inside. When I visited I did ask about that - the guide insisted the berm still helped moderate the temperature which I suppose it does but I'm sceptical about by how much. Hockerton's much nicer from the lighting point of view, though.

    Rock would be tricky, though, unless it's completely impermeable (which presumably sandstone isn't) as it would be awfully hard to stop water taking your heat away. Earthships dig in quite a bit further than the house and add a waterproof barrier outside the thermal mass.
    •  
      CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2012
     
    Posted By: Gavin_AThis seems to be missing the entire point of earth houses as I understood them, in that they used the thermal mass and insulating properties of the surrounding earth to maintain them at a steady temperature year round, with heat input mainly from a south facing glazed wall.

    You still need to thermally decouple the house from the earth. Earth sheltering means that the lowest external temperature is approximately constant and the same as the average at 10 C or so, instead of 0 C or -10 C or -20 C. But the inside of the house needs to be approximately constant at a higher temperature 18 C or 20 C, with permissible excursions up to 26 C or so in high summer. So you still have an outward flow of heat through the walls. The insulation reduces that flow.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2012
     
    Posted By: djhyou still need to thermally decouple the house from the earth
    Not in PAHS and AGS - in which maximum coupling is desired.

    Posted By: djhthe lowest external temperature is approximately constant and the same as the average at 10 C or so
    Not if it's either deep below the surface, or more practically, covered with a wide insulation blanket close below ground surface above. Then the ground mass is largely decoupled from av external air temp, and will therefore couple itself to av internal air temp. As long as you're willing to let the latter swing between say 24C (when the sun's coming in the south glazing) and 18C, the surrounding ground shd eventually adopt a steady 21C, and absorb heat (cool the interior) in summer and release heat (warm the interior) in winter - between those fairly wide limits. Google PAHS and AGS for much discussion of these principles.
    •  
      CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeMay 9th 2012
     
    Gavin's question was about regular earthships, not PAHS or AGS. Separate subject.

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