Solar Thermal System Results in 80% Less Energy Use!
Sean Misskelley from Clarum Homes talks about the solar thermal system in the Menlo Passive Home Project.
The house is equipped with a 3-panel 120-gallon Velux solar thermal system with a high-efficiency vortex made by A.O Smith as a back-up water heating source. This system is designed to offset approximately 80% of the energy needs for heating the home’s water and up to 50% of the home’s demand for its space heating.
This system is also used inside the home in conjunction with the heat recovery ventilation system with a hydronic in-line heat coil. This system heats the water on the roof, coming down through a controller that reads the temperature and stores it in the storage tank. The high-efficiency boiler only kicks on when the temperature drops due to lack of solar heat caused from rainy or very cloudy weather.
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While the HR ventilator will take care of particulate pollution (though I would rather the filter be MERV 16 than 13), what about the polluting gases that are in most areas these days? I am talking about fumes from wood burning, barbeques, automobile combustion exhaust, maybe diesel exhaust (very nasty stuff), other internal combustion engines (like lawnmowers), and the fumes from pesticides, herbicies, and fungicides. A particulate-only filter will not help any of these from being brought into the otherwise healthy home.