Energy Efficient House: Design and Build a Passive Solar Home
This was our first project of the second semester of the school year. Our job was to design a total off the grid building that didn't require any electricity and could regulate heat on its own. Some things we had to research more in depth were water heating, sun angles, how materials absorb and reflect heat, daylighting techniques, and how to blueprint. We had a budget of $5000 to find all the materials we needed to build the house, and around two months to complete the project.
Mini Projects
Solar Water Heater- for this project we had to create a water heater that only ran on the suns energy to heat up the water. The point about this project was to learn about heat and how we could use the suns energy to heat up objects. We first started by getting a paper bag that contained a milk carton of water, and newspaper for insulation. We then had plastic tubing stringing from the bag to a box made out of cardboard. That tube connected to a copper wire that snaked through the cardboard box. The box was covered in tinfoil and spray painted black to make sure it absorbed the most heat as possible. We poured water into the milk carton and let the water run through the tubing and wire and sit there. in 15-20 minute intervals we rotated the water through the pipes and recorded the temperature change. Our group raised the water temperature by 3 or 4 degrees which was pretty significant.
Solar Angles- Our next mini project was flashing a flashlight at different angles to demonstrate the light given off by the sun during seasons and times of day. We learned where we should place our key features of our house and how we could get the maximum amount of light in during all times of the year. We also learned how the Earth experiences seasons and how they are made. Seasons are due to the Earth's tilt and during the year the sun will either be closer or further away thus creating seasons.
Day-lighting Model- For this project we learned about different types of day-lighting techniques that are used to help light passive solar homes. Some examples of these day-lighting techniques are clerestory windows, solar tubes, light shelves, and picture windows. These features allow us to bring in the most light into our building as possible. In our home we used four solar tubes, one skylight, and four light shelves. Our house was also pentagonal shaped, like a diamond. After we built our model we shined a light in different angles to simulate the suns rays during seasons, similar to our solar angles project, and saw how much light entered our house.
Site Selection- After scouting the entire campus we focused on one site that fit the standards for our house. The site was located near the library and visible to Novato Blvd. drivers. It also had hard flat ground with no shade and had sunlight during most of the day. Another great factor was that it was easily accessible to students and visible to the public.
Material Testing- In this project we set out various materials from drywall, to stucco, insulation, and brick, and placed them underneath heat lamps and recorded its heat every thirty minutes. For our house we used the best heat absorbing materials.
Materials:
Flooring:
Materials:
Flooring:
- Cork
- Carpet
- Linoleum
- Hardwood
- Colored Drywall
- Paints
- Stucco
- Bricks
- Redwood
- Adobe
- Batting fiberglass
- spray foam
- Corrugated metal
- Tar
- Shingles
- Gravel
Types of Energy Sources
Wind Turbines- Our last last mini project was designing a wind turbine of our own. The two types of wind turbines were HAWT and VAWT. HAWT stands for Horizontal Air Wind Turbine and VAWT which stands for Vertical Air Wind Turbine. We had to create a wind turbine fore both HAWT and VAWT and test the performance of them. The materials we used for this projects were a fan, wooden sticks, paper, and tape.
Final Project and Design Process:
For our final project we designed a L shaped house oriented from South to West. We chose the L shape design because it was unique and we felt it would help let in the maximum amount of light. Our group came up with a lot of ideas that we put towards our final product. We had a lot of features that helped our design standout, for example we had a solar tube, one clerestory window, and windows directed towards the sun. We spent most of our time discussing and creating our blueprints. Overall we had over fifteen different blue prints that showed wall framing, roofing design, dimensions of the home, and foundation. All the items in our house were carefully picked out and researched before going into our final presentation. Our materials were, durable and reliable yet not a huge expense due to our $5000 dollar budget. We were also capable of keeping the home under 120 sq. feet and under 8 ft. so it didn't require a permit that costs a lot of money.
Key Concepts:
Law of Thermodynamics-
0th. Law- If two objects are in the same thermal equilibrium with each other they are in the same equilibrium.
1st. Law- Energy neither destroyed or created. Conservation of Energy
2nd. Law- Entropy Increase + / Disorder Increase +
3rd. Law- Nothing can ever reach absolute 0 because there will always be heat
Insulator- Something that holds heat in very well
Conduction- Heat through Material
Convection- Heat through water
Radiation- Energy sent through waves
Heat- Energy that goes through molecular movement
Archmedie's Principle- Amount of fluid displaced is equal to how much it weighs
Bernoullis- when a fluid's pressure decreases its speed increases
Buoyancy- ability to float in a fluid due to being lighter
Specific Heat- How fast or how slow something heats up while retaining its energy
Buoyancy Force- amount of force pushing back on submerged object
0th. Law- If two objects are in the same thermal equilibrium with each other they are in the same equilibrium.
1st. Law- Energy neither destroyed or created. Conservation of Energy
2nd. Law- Entropy Increase + / Disorder Increase +
3rd. Law- Nothing can ever reach absolute 0 because there will always be heat
Insulator- Something that holds heat in very well
Conduction- Heat through Material
Convection- Heat through water
Radiation- Energy sent through waves
Heat- Energy that goes through molecular movement
Archmedie's Principle- Amount of fluid displaced is equal to how much it weighs
Bernoullis- when a fluid's pressure decreases its speed increases
Buoyancy- ability to float in a fluid due to being lighter
Specific Heat- How fast or how slow something heats up while retaining its energy
Buoyancy Force- amount of force pushing back on submerged object
Reflection:
This project was a very big step into a wider range of concepts and freedom to express our opinions and ideas. It was also a project that required a lot of communication and effort between group members. When I first was in my group I thought it wasn't going to work out very well. But after a few days of working together and getting to know each other we began to really enjoy it. Overall my group did fantastic, better then I ever thought. We discussed every detail in our design, we helped each other out, and had a very fun time designing our model to our specifications. We worked well together and had no problems working as a group, we worked efficiently while still having a good time too. We did get off task at times, not to lie, but easily got back to topic quickly. This had to be one of my favorite projects and one of my favorite groups to work in.