Com Natural Heating and Cooling

Natural Heating and Cooling

All buildings can be partially heated and cooled using natural heating and cooling processes, but most existing buildings rely solely on mechanical heating and cooling equipment which consume large amounts of energy. Different types of construction and landscaping methods can be used in various climates that can utilize the suns heat and the earths’ natural cooling processes to provide a comfortable living environment for the occupants during many months of the year. There are already many buildings that provide comfortable and more healthy working environments without the constant use of mechanical heating and cooling units.

All new buildings should be built on an east west axis with a sufficient amount of windows with proper overhangs on the south side of the structure to capture the suns warmth during the day, and even older structures can be modified to take advantage of this process. Then a predetermined amount of thermal mass is needed to absorb the access heat during the day and release it at night as the structure cools. Utilizing this method provides for a very comfortable and stable inside temperature with minimal use of mechanical heating. Properly capturing the suns heat during the day is enough to provide a significant amount of the heating needs in a properly designed direct solar building. Buildings with large footprints have to cool the interior temperatures of a building and heat the exterior portions of the building in the winter. In this instance fresh outdoor air should be vented into the interior of the structure and mechanical heat exchange units used to capture the heat and transfer it along with fresh air to the exterior areas of the building.

In the spring and fall a building can also be cooled with the use of natural ventilation, stack affect, operable windows and earth tubes in smaller structures. Natural ventilation occurs through the innate passage of air through a structure with the use of operable windows and can also be mechanically assisted to draw outside air through the building to cool it down. Stack ventilation occurs when hot air rises and draws in cool air from the bottom of the structure as it leaves the building. Many new structures are being designed with indoor atriums with a significant amount of glass to provide light for living environments as well as heat the air within so that it rises and draws in warm air from the surrounding structure which then receives cooler fresh air from outside. The utilization of earth tubes in this process can also provide preconditioned and dehumidified air in this process thereby supplementing or replacing or supplementing mechanical cooling systems. Europe is leading the way in earth tube development and it is slowly gaining validity in the U.S. Earth tubes provide a safe and healthy preconditioned air supply when properly constructed, filtered and maintained.

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