Greetings from the great white north Mike. I have experience with thermal mass storage. I have a 2000 gallon tank full of sand buried in 6 feet of clay, 6 ft underground.With a perimeter and sloped roof on 4 inch insulation over top of it to keep the moisture and ground frost away. I stole the idea from Polar Night Energy, and buried it. The only things above ground are the heating elements and blower that moves the air through the system, and the heat exchanger for the home systems. Which are inside the shed I built on top of the tank. Im completely off-grid in Saskatchewan. And I have very large 26kw solar array. It still cost me less than it would have to bring power into this site. Every time my batteries are full? Im dumping 4-8kw of energy worth of hot air into that tank an hour. The Tank (and most of the clay around it) is 575C right now. By the middle of March when the days get long enough for me to be pumping more energy into it? It will be around 200C. I use it for my hydronic in-floor home heating and it supplies an endless amount of hot water year round. The Solar system is so large because I wanted to ensure that even on cloudy days the 10-12kwh we used over night is back in the 30kwh batteries as soon as possible, and Im making heat all year long. Retired power engineer btw. Spent nearly 30 years working with commercial steam and refrigeration applications. It wasn't hard to justify the extra $10k worth of solar. The only other ways of heating this place would have cost $2000-$3500 a winter.
The problem I see is the heat loss rate as it may be balanced at 70 f but never reach optimum at 32 F so you need a collective chamber to catch the heat and release it at a rate which keeps it balanced. Just thinking out loud here Mike you are far ahead of me.
Greetings from the great white north Mike. I have experience with thermal mass storage. I have a 2000 gallon tank full of sand buried in 6 feet of clay, 6 ft underground.With a perimeter and sloped roof on 4 inch insulation over top of it to keep the moisture and ground frost away. I stole the idea from Polar Night Energy, and buried it. The only things above ground are the heating elements and blower that moves the air through the system, and the heat exchanger for the home systems. Which are inside the shed I built on top of the tank. Im completely off-grid in Saskatchewan. And I have very large 26kw solar array. It still cost me less than it would have to bring power into this site. Every time my batteries are full? Im dumping 4-8kw of energy worth of hot air into that tank an hour. The Tank (and most of the clay around it) is 575C right now. By the middle of March when the days get long enough for me to be pumping more energy into it? It will be around 200C. I use it for my hydronic in-floor home heating and it supplies an endless amount of hot water year round. The Solar system is so large because I wanted to ensure that even on cloudy days the 10-12kwh we used over night is back in the 30kwh batteries as soon as possible, and Im making heat all year long.
Retired power engineer btw. Spent nearly 30 years working with commercial steam and refrigeration applications. It wasn't hard to justify the extra $10k worth of solar. The only other ways of heating this place would have cost $2000-$3500 a winter.
most anticipated video upload of the month! good to see your work progressing nicely. and still rocking the celsius!
The problem I see is the heat loss rate as it may be balanced at 70 f but never reach optimum at 32 F so you need a collective chamber to catch the heat and release it at a rate which keeps it balanced. Just thinking out loud here Mike you are far ahead of me.