Please STORING HEAT: The house was built with an independant air system for heating thermal mass (1) a rock box and 2) basement rec room). This rock box is located at the center of the house (rather than a trombe wall behind southern windows). It is full of 2 inch rounded rocks 10 feet deep (5 by 5 feet) from the basement floor to the upper main floor. The rocks are heated during a winter day by a fan - pulling hot air from the top of the vaulted ceiling to the bottom of the rocks in basement and trickling up through the rocks all day. They radiate their heat at night time. The back up gas furnace does not come on very often.
BTUs (British Thermal Unit) of heat are store in both the rock box, brick interior walls and sheet rock. I estimate Brick mass = 110,000 lbs, Rock box mass = 16-20,000 lbs = 124,000 lbs x .19 BTU/lb x 6 degrees lost over night = 141,360 BTUs. On a best sun winter week, the rocks get up to about 76 degrees. The rocks and basment rec room only increase about 3 degrees in one good day.
To do over again, I would insulate greatly below the basement cement floor and then pipe hot air under the cement floor to take advantage of a thermal mass waiting to be used besides just being a floor.
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Building the house in 1982 (Westminster) NEXT , Note the brick layer's beginning of the cinder block rock box seen through the center basement windows. The next day, this box will be finished and extend up to the basement ceiling. A dump truck will fill it with 2 inch rocks.
Winter Snow, January 2007
= HOME ENERGY AUDIT: ==============================================
Contracting a house rating is the FIRST STEP. They will provide you a prioritzed list of the most cost effective energy savings project that will make you house more comfortable. Your power company can direct you to a list of contractors. By contracting a "blower door" test on a cool day, you can run around the house and list all the cold air leaks. THEN CAULK ALL YOUR LEAKS which could take a couple years!
An Energy Star rating will tell you where your house compares to the national average on a scale of 500 to 00 with 00 = Netzero house. Below, my audit shows a honorable "26".
= =TRANSPORTATION:===================================================
Be a good Host and provide an outlet for your house guests to plug in and recharge their cars before they go home. It is free electricity from your solar PV panels!
CAR: PRIUS REDESIGN? This good looking car may be it: 
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CAR: The Aptera Electric and Hybrid car. Your current windsheild wipers, or sticking your elbow out the window create more friction than this whole car does! The Hybrid Milage will be 100+ MPG. The all electric version just plugs into your house and is equivalent to $1 per gallon at today's rates or $0.00 if you have enough PV solar panels for your house. NOTE the PV panels integrated into the roof which run the airconditioning free while the car is parked all day. www.aptera.com/details.php
FUEL AND ELECTRIC BILL: =====================================================
1999 - 2009 ENERGY BILL FOR HOUSE: GAS = BLUE, ELECTRICITY = RED (dropped in June 2006 after PV installed). The lowering blue gas line in winter is due to caulking leaks and automating window shades to close with the clouds and open when sunny using HomeSeer software. The first "Y" axis line represents $20 and 20 Therms. The electrity (red line) goes below zero in the summer:
==MAKE A NON SOLAR HOUSE A SOLAR HEATED HOUSE: ===========================
Below is a "HOT AIR panel" to heat your home if you do NOT have enough windows on the south side or roof of your home to catch the winter sun. These are manufactured by www.yoursolarhome.com A solar powered fan pulls room conditioned air across the black surface and returns the air back into the room at 150 degrees. The amount of air movement is comparable to a bathroom fan.
On a zero degree Winter day, one hot air panel will increase the heat my 12x12 room from 62 to 72 degrees on a sunny day. The panels are air only and contain no water to worry about freezing at night time. Vertical orientation catches the sun better than horizontal but I made do with the horizontal space I had. I also caulked the back of the panels before installation to reduce cold air leakage from outside on windy days.
For new construction, or if remodeling, these hot air panels can be attractively integrated into the wall. The panels can also be roof mounted to catch the sun using longer duct work in the attic. In the summer time, just turn the thermostate off and no heat will come in. These are the perfect solution to make a non solar house, a solar house.
Shown below are the hot air grills inside the house immediately in back of the panels. These plastic wall mounted grills are white and can be painted to match the interior.
= DAY LIGHTING AND COOLING ============================================
Clerestory Windows bring in much cheerful daylight from morning through evening. When eating breakfast, I almost never have to turn on a light in the kitchen. On December 21st, the sun's low angle shines in at the same angle as the ceiling roof. Summertime: There is NO direct sun through these southern windows from May through August and the house stays cool.
Clerestory windows can OPEN TO VENT unwanted HEAT:
MORE DAYLIGHTING below: On December 21st (winter solstice) the sun is very low and therefore shines directly into the southern windows. (In summer there is no sun in these windows from May through August due to overhangs because the Sun travels over the north half of the globe and over our Colorado roof.) This ceiling vent sucks hot air into the basement and into the rock box using an indepentent air system with a squirrel cage blower fan.
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KITCHEN and SUMMER COOLING: The evaporative cooler (swamp cooler) is built into the attic wall above the kitchen cabinets. In summer, toggle a wall switch, the cooler runs on the same thermostat that runs the Rock Box heating action in winter.
= CLOTHESLINE: SAVE ENERGY OVER DRYERS: =================================
Retractable clothes lines are available from Home Depot etc. NOTE: By mounting the unit's hinged base at an angle to the right, the string is tied off on the unit and then rotated up to make the string taught.
= REMOVING SNOW FROM PV PANELS: =======================================
Snow will prevent your PV panels (Photo Voltaic) from creating electricity until the snow melts. Colorado always has deep blue sky the first hour after a snow storm. Therefore I remove my snow with a 3 foot wide sqeegee (I made from a 30 foot extention pool and a rubber "front door" bottom threshold)
= TOURS welcome: ============================================
My 'out reach' activities include any amount of folks invited to tour the house. Just call! Size can be from any team or organization such as churches, scouts, governments, elementary schools, colleges. Below, a bus of 60 folks backed up to the driveway. For large groups, I obtain helpers to divide the group into 3, and rotate them every 20 minutes between the: 1) back yard, 2) basement, 3) main floor
