solar chimney

[kan-green]

Does anyone have a solar chimney or functional cupola to cool your home? How does it work?

[Alice In TX/MO]

There is one on the mansion at Jefferson Island, Louisiana. We were there in the summer, and the house was cool.

http://www.ripvanwinklegardens.com/j...onmansion.html

http://energywaterairearth.posterous...al-ventilation

[kan-green]

Thank you Alice I will have to check out that site. I'm from Louisiana and maybe that would be a good place to vacation. I have not been home in years and my kids have no idea of the culture there.

Michael

[kan-green]

Thank you Alice I will have to check out that site. I'm from Louisiana and maybe that would be a good place to vacation. I have not been home in years and my kids have no idea of the culture there.

Michael

[jwal10]

I have one. It cools in summer and the thermal mass of the 2'x4' concrete block chimney is used to heat in the winter. It takes in cool air from the earth under the house during the warm season, rises and enters a collector tray inside the chimney, a small 12 volt fan moves the cool air back down near the floor of the bedroom and living area. Near the ceiling warm air reenters the chimney and is then exhausted outside. In the winter we close off the intake from the crawl space and open a duct from the solar heater, the warm air rises to the tray collector where the small fan recirculates the warm air back near the floor of the bedroom and living area. In cold weather a quick fire in the wood stove in the morning to heat water warms the mass of the chimney, another 2 hour fire in the evening is all we need to keep confortable all night in the 400 sq ft cabin....James

[meanwhile]

We do not have a cupolo but we do open up our basement door to the outside....then we open up the door at the top of the stairs.....which is directly below our upstairs loft double windows......the end result is that the hot air from the main floor of the house is sucked out to the upstairs windows and the cooler air from basement .........which is also fed cooler air from a north facing wooded area......cool air is sucked into the house.......

When we close up the south facing front windows........it causes the air flow from basement......and out to the top.....to increase.......

Hope that makes sense.......it works pretty good.......we do not turn on the AC till it is really very hot in summer.

[SolarGary]

Hi,
A few solar chimney stories here:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects...ing.htm#Towers

Meanwhile's setup reminded me of Fran's:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects...AirCooling.htm
Very entertaining

Gary