Hah!! A man after my own heart. :-) I am very interested in solar
energy too. And wind energy! And Susan's idea of building it half
underground is a great one too. Earth is a great insulator and heat sink.
The annual variation in temperature decreases considerably as one goes
deeper, and below about one metre, or so, at our latitude, it is quite
modest and at no time does temperature at that depth get close to freezing.
Yes, that is a great idea. I don't know if I have the energy to dig
_quite_ that deep. I was thinking of sinking the final floor a foot or
two, at least. Commercial growers I have talked to warned me against
setting it too deep. What you gain in thermal efficiency, you lose in
light. For me, that isn't a bad thing, my chosen orchids are pretty low
light (paphs and phrags, mainly). If you are a vanda grower in the
north, dirt walls might not be such a good option. But if you are a
vanda specialist in the northern tier, it might be cheaper to move south...
Here is yet another idea to consider. In thinking about using water to help
with passive heating, it occured to me that there are few materials that
have as high a heat capacity as does water, and at our latitude and with our
winters, humidity is often a problem, so why not kill three birds with one
stone and put in in-ground swimming pool underneath the greenhouse? It
At one point I was considering a lap pool, but that was more of a
daydream than an actual consideration. But it wouldn't be that hard to
manage, and you could have a moveable 'boardwalk' that lives under the
bench, just pull it out when you need to access the plants, roll it back
under the bench when you are done. Swimming pool isn't high on my list,
but a water feature of some sort is a pretty good idea. Water is good
thermal mass. Per weight, I think rocks are better. But big rocks have
big air spaces between. Per volume, water might be better.
Now that is probably something I would not have put in writing! ;-) After
all, somebody might send it by email to her, or if she is curious about how
you spend your time on the web, she might do a search on your name and find
it that way. If she does, you might be sharing accomodation with your
favourite pet for a while. ;-) You do have a dog, don't you? ;-) It
would be bad if she sent you to the dog house and you didn't have one to go
to. ;-) And somehow I don't think practicing our convenient hearing would
work. ;-)
Two cats, and they live in the house. I'm safe... Or I can sleep
in the barn, I guess. Or sleep in the barn while I build a nice
doghouse. *grin*
Rob
--
Rob's Rules:
http://www.msu.edu/~halgren
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a. See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to purchase
more orchids, obtain more credit