Project Details

I have come to believe that the true innovators of human history are the engineers who either by profession or instinct can look at a project and say "What if ?", given enough time and money most things can be done, but like the great practical Roman engineers this luxury is rarely available so the engineer says "What if ?"first, then what is practical? is there any way
to improve on practical at a reasonable cost?. What was done historically is to learn and apply knowledge from other area's or countries in a local way, sometimes improving the original process.
I would like to tell you a small bit about my Project, my name is Andrew Edwards;I came up with the concept of using geodesics with the roman architectural villa, with a central Courtyard, I did this by placing twelve equal sized rectangles narrow side end to end to make a polygon of twelve sides thereby maximising the courtyard area.
This appealed to me as it makes the outside--- inside with windows facing in. Some of the wealthier Romans also had a peristile or garden. This concept for the roman villa gave two things that are still valid today security and privacy.

I wish to create an energy dynamic environment that is in thermal equilibrium with the seasons, making a safe warm home
by harvesting and storing natures energy in an ecologically sound manner with due diligence and respect to those engineers that have pioneered some of these idea's.

Systems list

The south facing roof fabric to be covered by water solar panels heating a glycol transfer liquid, the temperature is to be optimised by flow control firstly to thermal storage gel then the inner earth heat bank until setpoint reached then to outer earth heat bank. returning to the solar panel. the building is a warm roof with constant air change.

The thermal storage gel has a theoretical heat capacity 480% more than water, with a heat loss of less than 1% per day this will allow seasonal cover for domestic heating and water.
The heat will be transferred to the building fabric via a Roman type Hypocaust via an indirect glycol fluid to a heat exchange unit, using air as the transfer medium, running under the floor and up through the cavity via a return vent to the crawlspace This has the advantage of very few moving parts.
At the end of winter season pump speed will increase to meet demand, there will be an upper warm roof vent for the whole house that will exit through the outer earth heat bank. Outside fresh air incoming will be heated to outgoing temperature via underground heat exchange in the earth bank dependant upon the set house temperature requirement, power for the low speed low voltage magnetic pumps and low speed low voltage fans, the power will be drawn either from a battery store or direct from an inconspicuous small vertical axis wind turbine, or a low speed high torque modified Stirling engine, which runs on temperature differences, both are low cost low tech
I will be using white LED lamps which are now available they run at 1w @ 12v which is very low power they last a lifetime 100,000 hrs plus they are brighter than florescent lights.

Next are the specific heat loss table:

...............
I have named my new home "Stoney Hollow" the following link will take you to the house plans ** House Plans **
.......................