Attempting to Retrofit a Mobile Home Floor for Passive Solar Heating

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by gmpm1, Apr 7, 2011.

  1. gmpm1

    gmpm1 Junior Member

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    The PDM and PDC stipulate digging a trench around the foundation line of a house and putting in a stone or concrete band of insulation around the periphery of the floor to direct the heat from the earth upward into the house instead of outward. This seems to imply that the house is resting on the bare ground or a concrete slab. Okay, fair enough.

    What do you do, though, with a mobile home sitting off the ground? If you trap air under the home by skirting it with, say, a band of cinder blocks or bricks -- starting from 18" below ground up to the bottom of the mobile home -- will this be effective or a waste of time? Must the home be sitting on concrete or ground or is there another solution?

    Many thanks!
     
  2. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

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    Is the home still mobile or permanently anchored?
     
  3. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    Location:
    inland Otago, NZ
    Climate:
    Inland maritime/hot/dry/frosty
    And what's your climate and aspect?
     
  4. gmpm1

    gmpm1 Junior Member

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    Temperate, 36-degrees north latitude, relatively flat site in a mountainous area. The home is mobile but need not be moved (though I've thought about rotating it 180 degrees at each equinox to take advantage of the mobility).

    I can't decide whether trapped air under the home would be a disadvantage as long as the perimeter is fully skirted with thermal mass. Radiant energy (in this case from the earth) heats solid bodies and not air, right? (Think of Bill M's anecdote about the kacheloffen in the German Pub if you know it) So, presumably the heat would radiate upward, straight through the air buffer to the floor. Then again, the radiant energy would be more distant from the floor and so might dissipate. Just don't know.
     
  5. dannyboy

    dannyboy Junior Member

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    Hello gmpm1,
    A stone or concrete band will not act as insulation. Insulation is about slowing heat transfer between objects which is typically done by trapping air between layers. Stones and concrete typically add mass and are useful for storing thermal energy be it warmth or cold. In the PDM Bill talks about using something like 2" styrofoam boards buried along side the foundations to contain within the house the thermal mass of the solid floor and earth below it.

    For your situation, if the home is staying put then you could approach it like any house on stumps where by putting insulation in the top, bottom and sides - effectively wrapping it in a blanket helps it to retain a more stable temperature.

    The Your Home Technical Manual has loads of great information for building design and retrofitting in an environmentally sustainable manner.

    Good luck,
    Dan
     
  6. gmpm1

    gmpm1 Junior Member

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    Yes, you're right -- Bill talks about putting the insulation inside the concrete band. The concrete, on the sunny side at least, is to catch the winter sun's rays and conduct the heat into the earth, if I understand it correctly. The insulation is to hold the heat under the house so it doesn't escape into the surrounding terrain which it is prone to do.

    Wrapping the mobile home is certainly part of my strategy, but I'm trying to use the earth as well, hence my question. Even if wrapped, I fear the home will end up like a Queenslander house on stilts -- being very cold in the winter.

    BTW, to the prior posters, I attempted a response which apparently didn't take, so here it is again: I'm in the temperate zone, 36-degrees northern latitude on a relatively flat site within mountainous terrain. The home is not permanently anchored. I thought about doing that, but also about possibly rotating it 180-degrees at the beginning of winter and summer to take advantage of the home's mobility, facing the more glazed side toward the sun in the winter only.

    Thanks a lot for considering this question!
     
  7. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    Location:
    inland Otago, NZ
    Climate:
    Inland maritime/hot/dry/frosty
    Housetruckers here use strawbales, but obviously only when they're parked up for a while. Travellers use various skirts along the bottom of the vehicle, which is more about reducing cold wind and frost than true insulation.

    But it really does depend on your climate and what you are trying achieve.
     
  8. stereocross

    stereocross New Member

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    Reply:

    We should consult experts to know the possible plan B or Solution to it. If a Mobile Home Floor for Passive Solar Heating can sustain variable changes in temperatures and has capability to hold itself good against all odds we should consider giving it a try. Me and my foundation are researching on more productive and sound ways to have eco-friendly passive house. Any effort to save nature must be thought upon. I'll try to discuss this problem, may be i'll have some concrete solution to it.
     
  9. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    I'll tell you what we did with ours. Its longest side is facing the way the sun travels all day (south above the equator, north below the equator) It's got lots of big windows (that are not the new ones that reflect heat, Low-E are now the code, but not what helps with passive solar.) I had to search around for the old double pane windows. I can stand by the window and feel the heat from the sun. We put a "skirt" around the bottom of Hardy board, concrete siding that fills in that space down to the ground. I don't know how a trench would help with heat. the heat comes from the sun directly, not the sun heating up gravel in cold soil. We have gravel around the house and it never gets hot.

    Anyway, the skirt wall and the house wall, when painted with a very dark, flat paint brings the heat underneath it. We painted the whole thing the darkest shade of military tank green we could find (it's in pine trees, it's a nice combo) . The space underneath gets very hot. We put black shingles on the roof. It's completely insulated up to code from when they built it a few years ago, walls and ceiling, but it heats up just the same, and the insulation keeps the heat in all night.

    It doesn't freeze where we are, but our summers are cold and foggy, but when it's about 10 degrees above freezing, it's probably 20 degrees warmer inside in the morning. After a sunny day it's very warm inside, and stays that way long after going to sleep. When there is a lot of cloud cover it obviously doesn't heat up as much, but it still is getting some heat. I've used this way of heating up our sheds so they don't get moldy and damp inside. I don't mind wearing a warm jacket when inside.
     
  10. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    And just to be sure I explained it right, there are absolutely no trees on our south wall (north wall below the equator) and west wall, which captures lots of heat as the sun is setting. If the ceiling isn't insulated, it will lose heat about 3 hours after sunset. You'd think insulation would keep the heat out, but it doesn't seem to, especially with the black composite shingles.

    One way to heat with 20 mm gravel is to make a large metal box, 2 meters by 2 meters, insulate the non-sunny sides, placed near the house in full sun, paint it flat black, fill it with the large gravel, have it exposed to the sun all day long. That way the gravel can heat up and hold the heat. Attach an insulated pipe from this box to the house and the heat from the gravel box will go into the house. this works in mild climates, I've seen it done where I am. But gravel can be extremely cold in winter, so not sure it would be the best source if it stays around freezing during the winter.

    Our dark paint and large windows have really surpassed my expectations about how warm we can make our place. :)
     
  11. gmpm1

    gmpm1 Junior Member

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    I think I've finally got this figured out. I've watched the video on this three times(!) from a PDC that Bill M. and Geoff Lawton did (https://www.tagari.com/store/18 -- Discs 11 and 12) and kept rereading the PDM on this, especially the diagram on p.416.

    They're talking about the waves of radiant energy (isogeotherms) that emanate from the earth. These are kept under the home by a skirting of foam insulation boards that extend 18 inches deep into the ground. This prevents these waves of radiant energy from moving outward and directs them upward into the home. In answer to a student question on the video, Bill says sketchily that it's not necessary to have a concrete slab under the home to radiate this heat from the earth. You simply have to direct the earth's radiant energy upward completely instead of partially outward. In a Queenslander -- a house on stilts -- which has the same crawl space under the floor that a mobile home has, Bill says you simply have to board up, i.e., tightly skirt the home. Radiant energy does not heat air, it heats bodies. It will rise up through the air space below a mobile home and up through the floor if directed that way. The air between the ground and the mobile home floor should not make much of a difference if handled this way.
     
  12. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    It's definitely hot under there when it's boarded up, although the duct work for the heater under there is wrapped in insulation, so there's no heat coming through the vents in the house from that duct work sucking up that passive solar heat. I don't think on stormy days or cold winter days it gets very hot under there, because that's when I go under there if I have to, so I won't be so miserable while crawling around. So if we removed that insulation from the duct work to try to have it heat up, I don't think it would give us heat on gray days, and that's when you need the heater that comes with it, but you wouldn't want it going through uninsulated duct work.

    I don't think there's anything special we could do to a modular home that we couldn't do to a house.

    Have you seen Earth tubes:

    https://www.thenaturalhome.com/earthtube.htm

    These work on the theory that the Earth (below the frozen part in winter) is a steady 50F or 10C, and that "heat" can be accessed through tubes in the earth. This would be a lot easier than digging the perimeter of your mobile home and sinking in something that, honestly, I don't think can capture anything more than the boarding up of the "skirt" can. The soil under ours is not hot from the sun, but the air is. So I don't know how they are figuring there's radiant heat coming up from soil under there that isn't exposed to the sun, unless they are saying that that 10C is heat.

    If it's freezing out, that 10C really is a help, but that's what the earth tube can do for you.

    Or this kind of a passive solar window/heat collector on the outside of a sunny wall would provide lots of heat.

    https://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm

    My father-in-law put one of these on their kitchen wall and it got so hot they couldn't even sit in the room, and ended up having to put awnings over it.
     
  13. TheDirtSurgeon

    TheDirtSurgeon Junior Member

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    I hate to say this, but I don't think you do. What they're talking about in the video... is not an earth SOURCE of heat, but STORAGE of heat from solar radiation heating the floor. In the example, sun coming in windows, hitting the concrete slab floor, and passing its excess into the earth below. Only then is there heat in that earth to radiate back up after sundown. The earth below the slab is simply an extension of the thermal mass of the floor, and only works because it's touching.

    Now, you have a joist floor I'm guessing at least a foot or two above grade. There is no way in hell you're going to get heat to store there short of bucking the laws of physics. Air is not a heat storage nor conductor.

    You would be best served by stacking straw bales around as skirting, as high up the walls as you can. Insulate the floor if you haven't already.

    Better yet, buy a few more straw bales and build yourself a decent house. Salvage the trailer for windows, and lumber for roof and jambs. :D
     
  14. gmpm1

    gmpm1 Junior Member

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    It seems you're confused about the difference between conductive, convective, and radiant heat, and that might be leading you to repeat the obvious -- that the sun as the original source -- and also to misstate the effect of the air pocket. Air is not that insulative of radiant heat. Think of the effect of a kachelofen's ability to heat (via radiant heat) the people in a room comfortably while the air temperature in the room would be considered "uncomfortably" low. What B and G are talking about is the earth's radiant heat.

    Also, I'll be generous and assume that the suggestion of putting straw bales around a fire-prone mobile home, was simply a joke.
     
  15. TheDirtSurgeon

    TheDirtSurgeon Junior Member

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    My dear fellow, I am not the one confused. You WILL NOT transfer heat from a mobile home floor through 2 feet of air and store it in the dirt underneath in any significant amount. Try all you like, though, because it's not MY time and money you're wasting. Feel free to prove me wrong in the process! Take some pictures, take temperature measurements, and empirically prove you're heating the ground, and storing enough to heat your trailer overnight. I'll buy you a case of beer if you do.

    And no, it was not a joke. A fiery death trap is a fiery death trap, so you might as well be warm. If anything, straw bales would slow down fire... especially if you covered them with dirt.
     
  16. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    Does that video give actual temps? Or are they just using the word "heat" or "warm air"? It's too vague if it isn't being specific.

    Under my mobile, when it's cold outside, cold enough for a coat, it might be a few degrees warmer underneath, but it wouldn't change the interior, which you can get MUCH MORE HEAT into from windows that are facing the sun for most of the day. In an 12 foot room I have two 4-foot by 5 foot windows, that's about 2/3 of the room in windows, and it provides enough passive heat from the sun, even in a mild winter, that the inside stays relatively comfortable. I just wouldn't put money into doing anything underneath, unless I was in Canada or someplace where there is a long cold season.
     
  17. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    A couple other things....there always needs to be vents to the outside to aerate under a house of any kind because of the dampness of the earth, and if the temps under there are high without ventilation to the outside it will create mold, which can eat away at wooden structures, but also get into the house ventilation heating/air ducts. Black mold is hazardous to our health and requires professionals in suits tearing out wallboard, structural members and flooring, wherever it is.

    I'm a paralegal, I've read lots of details in lawsuits about black mold in rental units, people have to throw away their clothes, their furniture, rugs, anything with fabric, it can't be cleaned. Dripping water, even from an improperly guttered roof, can cause mold around siding that might have nails for plants or trellises, holes where water can repeatedly get behind or under the house.

    And if the mobile is on an asphalt slab, which is pretty common, hot air coming off an asphalt slab isn't something you want filling up the interior.
     

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