rocket-mass-heater / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Heat pump electric hot water heaters, good or bad idea? Water heaters are generally the biggest energy drain in a home after heating. so Air-to-water heat pump water heaters are potentially a big energy saver, particularly when the main heat source in a home is an air source heat pump, as the water heater can in effect...

What is a solar thermal collector? A photovoltaic (PV) solar collector converts solar radiation into electricity, but a solar thermal collector is much simpler than that. It refers to a device that collects heat directly from solar radiation. That can be as simple and rudimentary as water being pumped through a black t...

What is a thermal battery? Thermal mass of any kind can by definition be called a thermal battery, as it has the ability to store heat. In the context of a house, that means dense materials like bricks, masonry and concrete. Even a jug of water sitting in a sunny window is a thermal battery of sorts as it captures and ...

There are many manufacturers of heat pump water heaters on the market, which, rather than heating water with an electric coil as a normal electric hot water tank does, employ an evaporator to extract heat from the air (either interior or exterior) and use it to make hot water. The byproduct of an air-to-water heat pump...

  Solar thermal panels in cold climates are at risk of freezing in winter, so in the North, we use a glycol mix as a heat transfer fluid. This prevents panels from freezing but introduces new problems in the summer months when they are at risk of overheating.  There are two main types of residential solar thermal heate...

How solar air heaters work: Solar air heater diagram © Ecohome The above diagram indicates the basic concept of a solar air heater, and while there are many designs, the basic principle is the same - a small fan feeds interior air into a south-facing wall-mounted panel. Air is heated as it passes behind a black surfa...

We found this video at Whole Systems Design, a New England based company who identify, design, and develop human habitats. In their own words from their website : "We design and implement regenerative food, fuel, and shelter systems that operate on current solar energy. These are homesteads, farms and schools fit for a...

Dying eggs is one of my favourite spring traditions. Sadly, many conventional food dyes and artificial colourings are far from benign. According to a 2010 study conducted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks, "The three most widely used dyes, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6, ar...

Our previous update covered aspects of the building envelope, which allowed us to reduce the annual heating requirement to about the Passive House standard of 15 kWh per square meter. Windows are a part of that but they are also part of our energy performance strategy. The house is laid out south facing to maximize pas...

A solar igloo at first sounds counterintuitive, but contrast is at the heart of this design concept created by the L. McComber architectural team for Montreal's Igloofest. The solar igloo known as 'Celsius' can be visited free of charge until February 19th at the now famous Igloofest in the Old Port of Montreal. We wer...

Tankless water heaters , on demand water heaters and  instantaneous water heaters are different names for the same thing - domestic hot water systems that do not include the storage tank that comes with traditional water heaters.  This type of water heating system can be advantageous in some climates, provided they use...