Buffalobillpatrick
Member
In house planning stage, high altitude 8.800', cold Colorado climate, great solar available. Has anyone tried running pex in ICF walls before pour & using concrete for solar heat storage?
Warming the ICF concrete with solar would reduce my gas bill somewhat.
In my planned ICF walls & footers, there will be about 260,000 btus / 1* f heat storage available.
Tying solar into my planned radiant floor system would be difficult with the high temperature cast iron boiler I have already bought.
I realize that right now, solar is hard to justify cost-wise with gas rates being low.
I would like to find a way to use solar cheaply.
I don't like panels on roof, looks ,large hail, possible leaks, etc.
Don't want passive windows, I've had them in past home, insulated curtains were PITA with the closing / opening, this needs to be automatic, again $$
I will have a South facing wall with about 235ft2 am thinking of building verticle panels onto wall.
I have used the DOE online RESCHECK to calculate my design heat load (32kbtu at -20*f). Had to SWAG some inputs like infiltration. R23 ICF walls are about 20% of load.
Plans do inculde HRV, good windows, SPF ceilings, FPSF, well insulated radiant floors, etc.
Warming the ICF concrete with solar would reduce my gas bill somewhat.
In my planned ICF walls & footers, there will be about 260,000 btus / 1* f heat storage available.
Tying solar into my planned radiant floor system would be difficult with the high temperature cast iron boiler I have already bought.
I realize that right now, solar is hard to justify cost-wise with gas rates being low.
I would like to find a way to use solar cheaply.
I don't like panels on roof, looks ,large hail, possible leaks, etc.
Don't want passive windows, I've had them in past home, insulated curtains were PITA with the closing / opening, this needs to be automatic, again $$
I will have a South facing wall with about 235ft2 am thinking of building verticle panels onto wall.
I have used the DOE online RESCHECK to calculate my design heat load (32kbtu at -20*f). Had to SWAG some inputs like infiltration. R23 ICF walls are about 20% of load.
Plans do inculde HRV, good windows, SPF ceilings, FPSF, well insulated radiant floors, etc.
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