utiluty room

[CntrlAltDel]

Water or Rock?

I am building a utility room i am wondering what will hold heat longer Water or Rock.(granite/flagstone?)

I have a passive panel that will put out 150f degrees on the best of  sunny days in the winter.This building will contain all the water and plumbing to an off grid guest house (the building is standing and (a guest home) an after thought, oop's!.

 My idea  with this passive panel (4x8)is to suck air from the building into the panel/ heat rock/antifereeze into a 55 gal steel drum filled with rock,vent it back into the building,(this 55 gallon drum will have copper tubing to pre heat the water giong into to water heater)/or fill this 55 drum with water/antifreeze?

Any input?

 

[Chagrin]

Water holds heat much better than stone (google for a chart for the "specific heat" of various materials). Without paying exorbitant amounts of money it's impossible to find anything better than water.

[fuzz]

Take a look here:

http://www.hhs.net/jbrown/solarsel.htm

fuzz

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Three thousand (recycled) glass jars full of water for heat/coolness storage.  Neat hack!  (Heavy, though.)

This has me thinking about whether I can put a box full of shelves full of such jars in my nevada house garage and hook it into the air return from the house to stabilize the day/night temperature.  The house gets plenty of solar heat in the day but gets cold at night and burns propane to make it up.  Closet maid makes a wire-frame shelving that is strong enough and wouldn't impeed airflow.  (Pricy though.)

I'd be tempted to put some antifreeze in 'em to keep 'em from breaking if the air cicrulation system (or power) failed while the building was unattended during a hard freeze.  It would reduce the heat storage capacity a bit.  But avoiding thousands of shattered glass jars of water might be worth it.  B-)  (Or perhaps just pure water and a drip pan with a drain outdoors.  Would be necessary if you got condensation from cooling on hot days anyhow.)

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Or pressure can pure water and it doubles as emergency supplies.

[CntrlAltDel]

Thank's all for the input.

I will redesign my plans,tromb walls and rooms with rock floors in solar applications are the reason i asked.

 The idea of heating water so other water doesn't freeze is kind of hard for me to understand especially to see an vehicle  not retain heat in the cold after a few hours and it takes a while to re heat,although sitting in the cold an engine block V8 USA (STEEL)type filled with antifreeze. One would think steel filled with antifreeze,(yes non insulated) running hot doesn't retain heat that long.(if you think about it?)

  My utilty room will be more than well insulated though,(MASS),i guess is what matters.

 Thank's again for all the input!

[Norm]

   I can remember a guy back in the 70's in New York state solar heat panels on his roof and filled the most part of his basement with fist-sized rocks for heat storage....seemed to work real well....of course you could build a large shed or special basement to store the rocks...water may be a better medium for heat storage but rocks allow air to flow between them and release their heat into the air flow or

 absorb the heat from the air flow.simple heat exchanger...no tubes required!

                  just an opinion

                     ( :>) Norm.    

[juiced]

id like to see his design with more detail. i think there is a went not drawn in or something.

[tecker]

   Mildew is a big factor in circulating air over rock and I assume glass would be lass likly to mildew running pipe through the mass what ever you choose would improve on mildew buildup.

[CntrlAltDel]

A very dry climate here in Colorado for mold.

I would assume the heat from the panel would kill most mold.