options for house heating by reflected light
mn_mn
Imagine house with long side facing south, all walls transparent,
black floor and black water tanks on northern wall, how to direct most
sunlight inside for house heating with least amount of effort or
moving parts?
1. PATIO. Adding a south facing white or mirrored patio doubles the
sunlight being directed inside I think. With the sun so low you need
a long patio to get much effect.
2. DETACHED ROOF. Adding a flat very slight south leaning roof also
boosts sunlight hitting the house.
3. PARABOLA FENCING. Circular or parabolic shaped fencing open to
south can boost sunlight.
4. HELIOSTATS. Heliostats can be used less noticeably, putting some
far away on north side, with their tracking ability overcoming need to
be close to house to keep house near focus. Not sure whether their is
practical limit to how far heliostats can be.
5. BAND SHELL. Maybe maximum non-moving structure is band-shell like
half parabola?
6. CURVED SURFACES TO LENGHTHEN TIME MOVING SUN BOUNCES TO HOUSE.
Maybe curve some of the normally flat reflectors so that midday they
hit middle of house and even away from noon their focus still is on
house.
7. STILTS TO OPEN UP UNDERSIDE OF HOUSE. If one puts house on stilts
you open up the underside of the house, maybe also use a north facing
mirror to help bounce light, so then you can use a longer patio to
bounce more light onto the structure - double this double the area
open to "direct" sunlight?
8. LONG SIDE OF HOUSE FACING EAST-WEST. I wonder if better to put
the house so long side is facing east-west, for example this would let
parabola fencing keep some part of the house at the moving focus the
moving sun creates.
Has anyone researched these ideas, of with simple white or mylared
plywood panels boosting the light hitting a house????????????
Can light be doubled, tripled inside house without damaging eyes or
skin of inhabitants?
MN_MN
mn_mn
To comment on my post about whether reflected sunlight would be too
much for inhabitants of a house, if the floor and back wall are black,
and all else is clear window, then "brightness" your eye would catch
by would be minimal. For example your eyes only would see the image
of the sun in the mirror-patio and the image of the sun on the
underside of the detached roof and of course the normal image of the
sun in the sky, and like normal when walking under the sun you just
look away or don't look up or to south to not see this direct image of
the sun whether direct or reflected. Using white surface rather than
mirrors might help in diffusing the sunlight. ???
To easily deduce the doubling or tripling of sunlight I think one can
image you are sun looking at the house and then counting the number of
images of the house you see. If you see for example 1) the house, 2)
the stretched image of the house in the mirror-patio, and 3) stretched
image of the house in the underside of the detached roof and 4) half
the house in various north side mirrored fence panels, this adds up to
3.5 times normal sunlight hitting the house.
MN_MN
Morris Dovey
> To easily deduce the doubling or tripling of sunlight I think one can
> image you are sun looking at the house and then counting the number of
> images of the house you see. If you see for example 1) the house, 2)
> the stretched image of the house in the mirror-patio, and 3) stretched
> image of the house in the underside of the detached roof and 4) half
> the house in various north side mirrored fence panels, this adds up to
> 3.5 times normal sunlight hitting the house.
Keep in mind that the human eye is structured to handle considerably
less than one sun.
Exposure to a full sun (what you get when you look directly at the sun)
or more can result in blindness.
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/
nicks...@ece.villanova.edu
>7. STILTS TO OPEN UP UNDERSIDE OF HOUSE...
... over a garage with a transparent south wall and a massy ceiling? :-)
Nick
mn_mn
> Exposure to a full sun (what you get when you look directly at the sun)
> or more can result in blindness.
>
> --
> Morris Dovey
> DeSoto Solar
> DeSoto, Iowa USAhttp://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/
People have lived under the Sun since time began without many going
blind, though it is a danger.
Snow blindness I read is from the UV rays, which any reflector could
filter out.
After thinking I do think you see round images of the sun, not
distorted images, even looking at the mirror-patio or underside of
roof, ,, ,,, so I hope one's instincts would still be triggered by any
of the sun-images and you wouldn't look at any of the sun-orbs you
see.
Overall, I admit looking at white paper in sunlight can be annoying,
so I do wonder if at triple-sun strength the light is unbearable and
the need to avoid any white items wrecks this idea in its simplest
form (in more complicated form you just put up black thin walls an
inch inside the clear walls and you live in a dark solar oven with
just a few very bright interior windows).
MN_MN
mn_mn
Good idea, living on top of a solar-oven-garage (or maybe on side of
it) might be best, you get normal sunlight strength in normal room on
top and when more heat wanted just direct a fan at the hot floor.
What solar-garage design would be best - -
a pile of black bricks in middle to store heat and leech it upstairs
with parabola curved wall on north wall,
many heliostats (moving mirrors that track sun and bounce light to
focus) at edge of property for least visual impact just blasting the
pile of bricks (this seems max efficient design - - how to design
heliostat array, what limits?), or
something else???????
hmm, one could put bricks on second floor and live below.
MN_MN
mn_mn
Does anyone know how sun "seeming-brightness" varies with latitude. I
say this since humans at the equator can 1) occasionally look at the
sun or have it in the corner of their eye and 2) live in a sun-filled
room or field without bad effects at these equator levels, so with
mirrors we can boost sunlight to equator-levels without fear of
eyestrain, cancer, or just uncomfortableness. I do not think we can
just go by insolation, or energy/square meter since people are upright
so look at the sun from a vertical position so their eyes do not vary
with latitude and most room reflection comes from walls which also are
not lying flat on the ground. I think "seeming-brightness" most
depends on how the longer air path sunlight must take to get to higher
latitudes diffuses and reflect more sunlight as latitude increases. I
haven't been able to find this.
MN_MN
David Williams
It's much more uncomfortable and potentially damaging to have the sun
shining in your face from low in the sky than having it almost
overhead. Seen from high latitudes the sun is always fairly low in the
sky, but seen from near the equator it is often almost overhead.
Much more sunlight is reflected off water if the sun is low than if it
is high.
dow