Storing heat in bricks

[gotbeans]

Please elaborate. Links?

Not sure where to find info, I've worked on site of 1 place.

It's called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_process

There are many links not gonna read them all

PNNL: Compressed Air Energy Storage

This video had a chapter with it and is about air compression:

he talks about it at 4:30
at 7:15 - 9:00 has good info too about the process
The cars in the video seem to have had prototypes for like 15 years but are still not really existing... so I'd ignore that part of the video if you're even interested in compressed air to begin with lmao

As far as I know all compressed air energy storage facilities are still basically experimental stage, pretty sure some are actually attached to grid though unlike experimental things like tokamak ITER in europe

 

[MisterB1959]

although its certainly low tech, dont earth structures store heat for the cold periods later in the day and im sure i saw on tv once, that some off grid homes (self built) use oil drums full of water as walls, gaining heat in the daytime and releasing it in the night time.

as ever though, some people try to use low tech solutions where there may be better options. mainly because low tech usually means low cost ....

 

[gotbeans]

although its certainly low tech, dont earth structures store heat for the cold periods later in the day and im sure i saw on tv once, that some off grid homes (self built) use oil drums full of water as walls, gaining heat in the daytime and releasing it in the night time.

as ever though, some people try to use low tech solutions where there may be better options. mainly because low tech usually means low cost ....

Yea basic thermal mass.
homes in USA are insulated with very little thermal mass so internally they heat/cool very quickly.
If you have lots of thermal mass (barrels of water, for example) it takes a long time to heat/cool

so, during winter, if you heat it higher during hottest part of the day or ideally heat with the sun it takes less energy. So at night when you'd have to use less energy since it'll retain heat
opposite in summer
cool it as cold as you can (ideally at night) and it'll take a long time to heat up thus keeping the area cooler

Many places on earth can do a simple open/close windows during fall/spring and have zero heating/cooling for a few months of the year. If you have lots of thermal mass you can extend that to more months of the year... You'd want some fans/pumps to help circulate it faster though. 5-7AM usually coldest part of the day

 

[KITROBASKIN]

In New Mexico, adobe bricks have been used for a long time. Technically we are storing heat in bricks. The sun heats the ones by the south window, wood stove heats the others. It helps but is not the solution in of itself.

Adobe homes have no wall insulation traditionally. Living at a higher altitude with cool nights can work quite well in the summer. Winter time requires heating (passive solar, fuel or wood) pretty much all of the time. Those people who just occasionally visit their adobe homes in the winter will need quite a bit of time heating it to make things comfortable other than standing in front of a roaring fire.

 

[gotbeans]

Yep good thermal mass and radiant / convection heat
There are some new earthen/green house designs with block/metal exterior, heavy insulation, and then block/brick interior. Keeps it very efficient

 

[Warpspeed]

High thermal mass works very well if you live in an area where its scorching hot during the day, and freezing cold at night.

That is often the case in desert areas that are a long way inland, or at high altitudes.
The ultimate thermal mass dwelling might be an underground home or a cave.
There is a whole entire mining town in Australia that is pretty much all underground, that is Coober Pedy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy

 

[SunDave]

In New Mexico, adobe bricks have been used for a long time. Technically we are storing heat in bricks. The sun heats the ones by the south window, wood stove heats the others. It helps but is not the solution in of itself.

Adobe homes have no wall insulation traditionally. Living at a higher altitude with cool nights can work quite well in the summer. Winter time requires heating (passive solar, fuel or wood) pretty much all of the time. Those people who just occasionally visit their adobe homes in the winter will need quite a bit of time heating it to make things comfortable other than standing in front of a roaring fire.

View attachment 185582View attachment 185583

I know this is an extreme example, but my friends and I have an off-grid cabin where it can get down to -40 (C or F, take your pick, they are the same at that point!). If we feel like winter adventure, we will go there on the coldest of days. We often open the doors and windows to warm it up when we first get there since it is roughly the average of day and night temps and is actually colder inside than out at first. Then we get a fire ripping and head to the local watering hole for about 6 hours. Still cold sleeping the first night...

 

[Warpspeed]

Dave, I know what minus forty feels like, that is dangerously cold.
A few deep breaths can freeze your lungs.
Or it can cause the fillings to fall out of your teeth.

 

[gotbeans]

fillings used the past ~20 years are porcelain / composite resin and should be fine lol

 

[Warpspeed]

fillings used the past ~20 years are porcelain / composite resin and should be fine lol

It was about fifty years ago since I was in the Antarctic.
Mercury amalgam fillings back then, which I still have.

 

[Zwy]

Dave, I know what minus forty feels like, that is dangerously cold.
A few deep breaths can freeze your lungs.
Or it can cause the fillings to fall out of your teeth.

It's not that bad,usually that cold here there isn't any wind.

I'll take -40F with no wind than -20F with 25mph winds. The wind will suck the heat right out of person.

My fillings all stayed intact in -42F before. And my lungs never froze either.

 

[Warpspeed]

My lungs never froze either, but it is something we were warned about, as well as frostbite, nose and cheeks mainly.
Yes, wind chill is a very big factor.
A nice sunny day, blue sky, zero wind and minus twenty, and no shirt.
Its not too bad if you are active. all too easy to get sunburned.
Minus forty walking directly into wind blown snow is a very different thing.

 

[SunDave]

Regarding storage. Allow me to downsize the idea of the OP for a moment and just think about the idea of having a small nightly thermal battery linked up to a good weather app. All it would have to know is that nights approximate temps each few hours, and the heating system could guess on a pre-heat level. I'm sure that type of thing exists, but it can't be out there in force. It would allow people to downsize furnaces (with a backup of course), and get in that sweet spot for efficiency.

It would be neat to see an all in one mini-split with "mini" thermal storage. Built in weather prediction server, indoor and outdoor stats built in. The thing could just work away for a few hours before the sun set to approximate the heat needed, then adjust at night. Just a one and done with some smarts, but not stupid, unreliable "smart" data harvesting crap. And with a small system, the heat battery wouldn't need to be super-insulated. May not need anything at all.

Sometimes I lament the fact that if we just used technology simply, instead of complicating it all the time, we could get somewhere. There is so much that is not implemented because people always want the next big thing. I look back at the telcom, and power systems built generations ago and think about how our way more temporary "technology" is just tacked on top of that, then replaced with a new tack on a few years later. Slight progression in infrastructure and usable tech, but slow adoption. I believe that is partly due to it never being consolidated and standardized. Just constant progression of new garbage.

Probably just jaded from years of procurement. I now look at every purchase as future garbage/recycling. Right out of the box.

 

[gotbeans]

It was about fifty years ago since I was in the Antarctic.
Mercury amalgam fillings back then, which I still have.

that's some bad stuff man. Surprised you never had any health issues with it

 

[Zwy]

Regarding storage. Allow me to downsize the idea of the OP for a moment and just think about the idea of having a small nightly thermal battery linked up to a good weather app. All it would have to know is that nights approximate temps each few hours, and the heating system could guess on a pre-heat level. I'm sure that type of thing exists, but it can't be out there in force. It would allow people to downsize furnaces (with a backup of course), and get in that sweet spot for efficiency.

No need for a weather app linked to thermal storage, just recharge the thermal storage when it is needed.

Greatest efficiency for any biomass burner is high fire with gasification so batch burn is employed to run at high fire thru the entire burn, that is why there isn't any smoke or creosote. Smoke and creosote are actually wasted fuel/energy. As too much energy is produced to use at the time of the batch burn, the heat will be transferred to thermal storage where it can be used later.

It would be neat to see an all in one mini-split with "mini" thermal storage. Built in weather prediction server, indoor and outdoor stats built in. The thing could just work away for a few hours before the sun set to approximate the heat needed, then adjust at night. Just a one and done with some smarts, but not stupid, unreliable "smart" data harvesting crap. And with a small system, the heat battery wouldn't need to be super-insulated. May not need anything at all.

The current move in Europe which has mainly hydronic heat combined with low temp emitters is the air or ground source to water heat pump combined with thermal storage when used with a solar system. This allows the heat pump to run all day when the sun is shining and store the heat energy in thermal storage for use at night.

Thermal storage requires insulation. Multiple smaller tanks will emit more waste energy than single larger tanks due to increased surface area of the smaller tanks. Insulation of any medium is needed to keep thermal storage at a temp where it is useful. This allows the heat energy to be used for the intended purpose.

 

[OzSolar]

although its certainly low tech, dont earth structures store heat for the cold periods later in the day and im sure i saw on tv once, that some off grid homes (self built) use oil drums full of water as walls, gaining heat in the daytime and releasing it in the night time.

as ever though, some people try to use low tech solutions where there may be better options. mainly because low tech usually means low cost ....

Edward Mazria goes into detail about this in his book from 1979. The Passive Solar Energy Book. It's got a lot information related to this thread. It's out of print but you can easily find it. Talks about all sorts of really neat ideas.

This link talks about different climates zones. High mass structures do best in dry climates with big daily temperatures swings.

 

[SunDave]

Edward Mazria goes into detail about this in his book from 1979. The Passive Solar Energy Book. It's got a lot information related to this thread. It's out of print but you can easily find it. Talks about all sorts of really neat ideas.

This link talks about different climates zones. High mass structures do best in dry climates with big daily temperatures swings.

Very true, but the "rest of the story" is that depending on the interaction between the earth and that home, it could be very hard to actually heat it beyond a certain point where the earth becomes resistance to that. It all depends if the earth is directly coupled to a radiator like some concrete, or if there is insulation between. It's kind of the same story of the OPs post. At some point the insulation requirements for a perfect system become ridiculous.

In my opinion, there is always a point that we should consider additional inputs over super-insulation, etc. Especially since we on this forum know of sources of input, like solar for example. No one size fits all of course, and I only really know extreme cold, not heat!

 

[justgary]

Pump and dump is the worst (never ending problems)...

This is a broad statement that is not true for everyone.

My first geothermal unit lasted 25 years until I changed it because the condensation pan was rusting out and I wanted to change the water heater next to it. I have had the second one for 13 years now, and it seems to be going strong.

My system is pump and dump since the water table is about 10 feet down and the soil is sand. I just borrow the water for a few minutes. The ground water is about 70*F, so it is always the temperature that I want the air to be. Maybe once every ten years I backflush the system to remove some built up clay silt that comes through and coats the pipes, but this isn't a big deal.

Both systems have had desuperheaters to cycle excess refrigerant heat to the water heater. The whole setup is incredibly efficient.

 

[Warpspeed]

that's some bad stuff man. Surprised you never had any health issues with it

So I hear, but I am now 74 with a lot less hair, wear glasses, but otherwise am in excellent health.

 

[Warpspeed]

High thermal mass is best for large regular diurnal temperature swings.
Something to soak up the mid day heat, and keep you warm during the pre dawn chill.
Its not really ideal for a more moderate climate.

For long hot summers, or long cold winters, high thermal mass just makes cooling or heating more difficult and expensive.

If you live right near the ocean, with a strong on shore breeze most of the year, day/night temperature swing will usually be minimal.
A better approach would be low thermal mass and some really good insulation. That, plus energy efficient heating and cooling when required.