At long last, a solution to solar thermal storage??

Mark Eatherton1

I've known about the advantages of Phase Cahnge Materials for thermal storage for about 25 years. THe problem was sealing thier containers so that the corrosive liquid inside would not affect other materials. When it leaks out, it grows these really strange looking crystals. Looks like BASF has gotten it figured out! 1/2" of sheet rock with the micro capsules in it hold the equivilent energy of a 6" concrete wall. So that mean that 1-1/2" of gypcrete would equal an 18" thick concrete floor!

Here's the article.





BASF introduces Micronal® microcapsules for interior temperature control
New wax-filled heat-storage capsules in walls increase energy efficiency, comfort

CHARLOTTE, N.C., August 2, 2004 -- BASF has introduced Micronal PCM, a new microencapsulation technology for interior building materials, such as plaster boards and gypsum boards, that reduces energy costs and increases room comfort.

BASF's Micronal phase-change microcapsules (PCM) apply an established technique used in space exploration technology for interior temperature management in buildings. The technique is simple: Plastic capsules are filled with a wax that absorbs and releases energy by melting and solidifying. When integrated within an astronaut's spacesuit, a soldier's garments, or within an interior plaster or plasterboard wall, the capsules increase the thermal capacity of the material and act to dampen temperature swings. As a result, astronauts in space and soldiers in the field feel more comfortable. In a similar way, buildings constructed with Micronal modified plaster materials provide greater comfort for the occupants, and reduce air conditioning system energy needs by up to one-third, depending on the overall design of the construction.

"Manufacturers of interior building materials can utilize BASF's Micronal phase-change microcapsules to create new product categories that can give them a competitive advantage," said Michael Guibault, a Marketing Manager for BASF's Construction Polymers business in North America. "Applications include interior gypsum wall plasters, paints, plasterboard, and floor screed."

Guibault said that for architects, these tiny capsules add a new, innovative tool to address the growing 'green building' trend. He said architects can now design modern, flexible, light-construction buildings that have the energy-efficiency advantages that previously only came by using thicker, traditional materials.

"Old buildings, such as castles and churches, can maintain a constant indoor temperature for long periods regardless of the weather, because their walls are thick and they can store a great deal of heat energy," Guibault said. "The thermal capacity of a one-half-inch thick plaster layer with 30 percent Micronal is roughly equivalent to that of a six-inch thick brick wall. Consequently, a building that utilizes a thin layer of a Micronal modified plaster can achieve the same cool interior feel as a building that uses a thick stone or masonry wall."

While phase-change microcapsules are not a replacement for insulation, Micronal enhanced building materials can enable a reduction in air conditioning needs and allow the equipment to be run at a more constant level. It can also slightly reduce the need for heating at night. This 'space age' innovation can improve comfort, reduce capital outlay, and reduce energy costs, year after year.

BASF's Micronal phase-change capsules rely on simple melting and freezing, just as ice melts to form water when warmed and freezes again when the temperature drops below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. The wax microcapsules work in the same way, except the melting and freezing occurs at 78.5 degrees Fahrenheit. The key with the Micronal capsules is that a lot of heat energy is needed to fully melt the wax. For example, the energy required to melt one pound of ice at 32 degrees Fahrenheit to form water at 32 degrees Fahrenheit is actually equivalent to the amount of energy needed to heat the same pound of water from 32 degrees Fahrenheit to about 175 degrees Fahrenheit. The wax used in Micronal also absorbs a large amount of heat energy during its melting. When used in a building material, room heat is readily absorbed when interior temperature starts to climb just above the wax's melting point. While the wax is absorbing the room's heat to melt, the room temperature stays constant, thus modulating temperature swings in the room. This system works in daily cycles so that at night, when the room temperature drops below 78.5 degrees Fahrenheit, heat energy stored in the microcapsules' liquid wax is released as the wax freezes. Consequently, Micronal provides a dampening effect on the room's temperature during the day and night because it reversibly absorbs energy (e.g., from the air and sunlight), stores it, and later releases it as the ambient air temperature drops.

Micronal was made possible by a new microencapsulation technology that holds microscopic wax droplets inside hard acrylic polymer shells. The small, 2 to 20 micrometer sized microcapsules are impervious, making them safe to process, and far too small to be damaged by sanding, drilling or cutting of the construction material.

BASF manufactures and markets Micronal DS 5000 X, a dispersion of microcapsules in water, and Micronal DS 5001 X, a dry powder.

As a major supplier to the construction and coatings industry, BASF develops, produces and markets polymer dispersions, powders and solutions based on acrylates, styrene and butadiene worldwide. They are used, for example, to manufacture plasters, finishing systems and compounds, advanced super concrete plasticizers, roof coatings and ceramic tile adhesives. They act as binding agents in paints and coatings. BASF's special strengths lie in its high-performance research, development and applications technology. The business is part of the Functional Polymers division in BASF's performance products segment. Further information is available online at www.basf.com/dispersions.

Micronal® is a registered trademark of BASF Corporation.

BASF - The Chemical Company. We don't make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better.®
BASF Corporation, headquartered in New Jersey, is the North American affiliate of BASF AG, Ludwigshafen, Germany. We employ about 11,000 people in North America and had sales of approximately $9 billion in 2003. For more information about BASF's North American operations, or to sign up to receive news releases by e-mail, visit www.basf.com/usa.

BASF is the world's leading chemical company. Our goal is to grow profitably and further increase the value of our company. We help our customers to be more successful through intelligent system solutions and high-quality products. BASF's portfolio ranges from chemicals, plastics, performance products, agricultural products and fine chemicals to crude oil and natural gas. Through new technologies we can tap into additional market opportunities. We conduct our business in accordance with the principles of sustainable development. In 2003, BASF had sales of approximately $42 billion and over 87,000 employees worldwide. Further information on BASF is available on the Internet at www.basf.com.

For more information, contact:
Hartmut Lang
BASF
Tel: (973) 426-2843
E-mail: langh@basf.com


Enjoy!

ME

Carl PE

Cool.

I'm hoping that they're going to make a family of products with different phase-change temperatures. 78º isn't for everybody..

If they can get it packaged right, this would be a great product for fire-rated walls, too.

jerry scharf_3

fantastic

ME,

thanks for the great find!

I've looked at salt phase change materials for years, and have had a couple "perfect applications" if I could just make it safe and simple. Looks like this is just the perfect thing.

I will talk to them and find out about different temperature point materials.

jerry

Weezbo

Very fine read....now that has this century written all over it

*~/:) good catch i tell my sheet rocker today hes into fancy new stuff

Wayco Wayne

Now

I can make up a Trombe Wall with several sheets of drywall like material. Way cool. WW

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Carl PE

I was just thinking about

the "Roof Pond" design. If this stuff works like they say, it'd save a whole lot of structural work holding up those thousands of gallons of water..

Now, how much does it cost??

$)

Mike T., Swampeast MO

78.5 does seem a strange temp for the phase change.

In the drywall application, why would I want this? Presuming that there's good insulation installed between this (the interior surface) and the outside wall doesn't the heat for the phase change have to come from the outdoors and through the insulation? If you're talking radiant heat and the material actually "sees" the temp of the object doing the radiation, aren't you just "sucking" energy out of that object? If so, aren't you just allowing more heat to escape outdoor due to the higher temperature differential between indoors/outdoors?

I can't imagine a worse situation in the cooling season in my climate. Why on earth do I want a giant heat sink of 78.5 degrees during the night when the humidity is spiking and there's a gigantic latent heat load?

What does seem intriguing is the liquid-borne version used inside a dual-coil buffer tank. Install the tank in the return of a low-temp hydronic system. Use one coil for solar collection and the other for the return to the boiler. Hmmm... Might be an even simpler and more efficient way to integrate solar with my Vitodens...

Mark Eatherton1

I'm thinking more on the line of...

radiant wall heating system connected to the solar thermal system.

As for your application for cooling, you could run the collectors at night, allowing them to reradiate and super cool the eutectic material down, thereby allowing more sensible heat to be absorbed.

I don't know for sure, but it certainly looks interesting!

I too wonder how much they co$t...

ME

Bob Eh?

You don't win on weight.........

The liquid version is about 15% the thermal capacity of ice/water phase change for a given weight
once you do all the unit conversions. The powder is about 35%..... The specs live here:

http://www.functionalpolymers.basf.com/jsr/FunctionalPolymers/en_GB/portal/Construction_Chemicals/
content/Constructional_Chemicals/Construction_Chemicals_startpage

What we really need is something like water with two phase changes that occur around 65F and ~115F
with a similar or better specific heat! It would be really nice if the second didn't result in
having to store something as unwieldy as live steam ;-)

Then we would be in great shape for radiant heating and cooling

In the meantime we will just have to live with water, concrete and whatnot which rely
on outright molecular mass in the ranges we can practically use them or roughly 1 BTU/*/Lb

Bob

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Does sound utterly intriguing for such an application. No need for a giant storage tank and a chance to use that night-time re-radiation to your advantage in the warmer season--given suitable location like Colorado at least...

Mark Hunt

So

Timothy Leary was correct.

Better living through chemistry.

Sarcasm off!!

Looking forward to hearing more about this. Wonder which rad tube manufacturer will be the first to model a structure with this technology ?!?!?!?

Thanks Mark.

Mark H

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

DanHolohan

Bump

thfurnitureguy_4

Ok. Why not a slurry of micro capsules in water? good heat transfer and better temp hold. Just a thought.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

That's one of the products.

Mad Dog_2

Fascinating ME!

Mad Dog

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Dale Pickard

Research in Ohio

This was based on some research done at the U of Dayton. In the mid '80's I did a great deal of reserach on energy conservation measures for commecial greenhouses. I came up with the research done there and proposed the hollow concrete floor described below. I took the text from a report I wrote at the time.

Wax is very straight forward to work with as a PCM in some ways. The eurtectic salts that had been used for iso thermal phase change storage, like calcium chloride and and sodium sulphate had the corrosion issues that ME mentioned as well as nucleation problems. The phase change was not reliable without some nucleating agents. The salt would super cool without releasing it's heat. It was also hard to tune the temperature at which the phase change occured. The PCM would wear out. DOW was successfull with a proprietary calcium chloride system until the bottom fell out of the market.
The phase change temperature of a hydrocarbon like wax can be readily altered by changing the hydrocarbon mix and molecular weight. At Dayton they were experimenting with encapsulation soaking semi porous materials like sheet rock or concrete or HD polyethyene pellets in molten wax. As I recall, you can store a lot of heat in molten wax.
The big problem with wax is ......FIRE. Do you really want a house full of sheetrock that is full of wax? The fuel content of your house would skyrocket. The reason they are encapsulationg it is to try to keep the wax from getting "wet" when the wax goes through it's phase change. They are also trying to make it unavailable for combustion yet available for heat exchange. Tricky business.
Here's some of what I wrote in '87. We had done a few of these "hydro airfloors" minus the wax.
Dale

• Provision for Thermal Storage. Because of the high solar gains, much of the heating load of an
energy conservative greenhouse occurs at night and on cloudy days. For a conservative structure
which incorporates thermal mass accessible to the sun, the solar gains become sufficient to heat
the building through much of the night. The SunCraft greenhouse, with the addition of effective
thermal storage, can become a virtually self-sufficient solar building. Still, providing thermal
storage at low cost has proven very difficult.

To be effective, thermal mass must act as a buffer between the incoming solar gains and the
ultimate (time displaced) heating load. To do this passively, the mass itself must be located in the
building, preferably directly behind the glazing. Obviously, thermal mass competes for light with the
plants. If mass is not located in direct sunlight, its effectiveness in dampening solar gains is
substantially reduced. If the incoming solar energy is not directly damped in this way, then the
excess (beyond that necessary to meet the ongoing daytime heating load) solar gains result in hot
air stratifying at the top of the greenhouse. It is possible to actively circulate this hot air through some
heat storage medium, cooling the building and storing the solar heat for later distribution in the same
manner.

• The Hydro-Airfloor.The ideal heating and ventilation system envisioned for the SunCraft
greenhouse employs a thermal storage/heating system located in the floor. The floor is designed
to be cast as a hollow slab through the use of corrugated steel roofing plate. A 2” concrete
subslab is poured and the corrugated roofing deck assembled on the subslab. A 2" concrete
slab incorporating a hydronic radiant heating system is poured on top of the roofing deck. The
corrugations are used to pass air through the concrete slab and are open to a central supply air
plenum as well as a discharge plenums located along the glazing of the south and north walls.
This allows the flow of air to evaporate condensation from the glazing.

The design of the floor allows recirculation of air, from the top of the greenhouse through the floor,
in order to store and discharge heat. Air from the outside may also be pumped through the floor
and hot air exhausted, either through the clerestory windows, or a dedicated exhaust fan for
ventilation and cooling. In this manner the thermal mass may also be used to collect and store
"cool" (available at night in the summer) in addition to solar heat. The hydronic heating system can
be used to radiantly heat the soil or the greenhouse directly, and can charge the concrete floor and
deliver heat to the greenhouse through recirculating air. In addition, cold outside air for ventilation
purposes may be introduced to the building through the warm floor, tempering the air to a
reasonable delivery temperature. A delivery system of this type could easily be expected to
carry the heating load of the SunCraft greenhouse (in full ECM dress), under the most severe
weather conditions (-40°F), with high solar heating fractions.

The amount of thermal mass associated with the concrete block, concrete slab, and gravel is
substantial, but could be improved by adding soil and planting directly on top of the concrete
slab. A drainage system can be designed into the floor, so that water may be drained to the
outside or captured and recycled.

The amount of thermal mass in the floor may also be increased by the addition of phase change
material (PCM) to the concrete block. The PCM identified for use, and researched for these
applications by the University of Dayton, is a paraffin wax, octadecane (C18), which melts at
75°F. While there are many potential ways of using this material, University of Dayton research
indicates that concrete will take on the molten wax at 5% by weight of the concrete. This is very
promising in that the PCM could potentially increase the thermal storage capacity of the concrete
block by almost 3000%. Unfortunately, though the PCM is a waste byproduct of petroleum
refining, a very pure octadecane is required for the application. This is presently available in bulk
only, in a technical laboratory grade at a cost of over $1.00/lb., making it economically
unreasonable to use at this time. Produced and purchased in bulk, the price potentially will fall to
less than $0.20/lb.

The Hydro-Airfloor thermal storage system represents the lowest cost/highest performance
thermal storage system which is appropriate for commercial greenhouses. Other than thermal
storage, the system accomplishes ventilation, heating, cooling and condensation control. All of the
thermal mass is located in the floor, out of the way. The economic returns associated with such a
system are reasonable. However, this ECM is expensive and the last measure that one should
elect. The system and the SunCraft greenhouse are designed such that the Hydro-Airfloor may
be incorporated at any time after construction. The system, with the exception of PCM, is made
up of materials (concrete, gravel, concrete block, etc.) which cannot be expected to lower in price
in the future. Though such a thermal storage system is expensive, higher fuel costs and it’s value
as a quality heating and cooling delivery system make it an attractive option.

Dale Pickard

Thanks Mark

Here's a PDF I pulled that describes a couple of some solar studies done with this material.
Dale

Weezbo

i would like to see the results of the remainder of this..

experiment...the data collected may bring further insights as to the viability in certain climates...were you privledged in the remainder of the information ? tomorrow i am going to get a sample of a powder that is basically the same material used in the ceramic of the space shuttle,it is ground into a powder and a 1/4" has an r value of something along the lines of R-54 or there abouts.Iwould try to search it ou on the web however i cannot seem to install my google deal as the last tool bar seems to have some remanant that is "cropping "my screen on the google install ...i cannot read the lower half an am unable to determine which button means what ...:(

S Ebels

So.............

Is this stuff actually out on the market in useable form or is it stuck in the lab as yet?

Dale Pickard

OEM use

I think that this material is aimed at manufacturers to incorporate in other products. I imagine that for passive interior applications there must be some UL listing involved.

For solar applications, one could always find a way to immerse a container of wax in a storage tank. A neat idea in many ways. The isotherrmal nature of the PCM would buffer the temp of the tank. The Spanish study that I posted did this in a storage tank with this Micronal material. I don't know that you have to have the acrylic encapsulation.
I think that for hydronics, it would be better to pick a higher storage temperature and use a different wax. If you've ever done any XC skiing, you know how waxes can be tuned for temperature.

I don't know how the fact that wax is fuel enters into it's use in a storage tank? One other thing is that I think that it's a better application in masonry applications in a sense. In a water application the wax has to displace water, which is a pretty good storage medium. In concrete, the wax soaks into the void areas so nothing is displaced and the concrete isn't as good a storage medium to begin with.

The other thing is that water is free, whereas the wax costs...always more than we like. To hold the phase change temperature, you'd want some pure stuff, not a mix of different melting points. So what we are evaluating here is the compactness of the storage tank...which is certainly worth something. Also of value is the temperature buffering of the storage tank.

Dale

Weezbo

This Stuff here is what im talking about....

it is the ceramic insulation that is in a powder form ...it has some incredible R factor...i have no way to search it out right now as my Google search bar is Bye Bye.........This is the ground down version of the tiles on the space shuttle...1/4 " = like R 56 or some phenomena of the sort... the white round thing is a ceramic stone i use to play Go or Go moku its little bit bigger than a nickle

Dale Pickard

Weezbo, I gotta ask...

is that something that you snort? ;-)
Possibly one could soak space shuttle tiles in molten wax and come up with a cool solar storage tile.

You play Go?.....I have thought that I should learn. I'm afraid that I had to get bifocals for my third eye a few years ago.

Dale

jerry scharf_3

Weez,

I found one thing that sounds like what you are talking about. They didn't make any comments about the exact R value, but it's got to be fairly high to be sueful as a paint on surface. Check out http://ceramicadditive.com/ there are a bunch of neat products.

Constantin,

These folks sell an intumescent paint that looks like it has similar ratings to Firefree88. It's $65 a gallon and they will sell directly to you. It's the HT1-ED.

jerry

Weezbo

Jerry Look at INSULADD same stuf?

i am considering this stuff and i do mean seriously considering it i have a one pound bag of it or so....Dale,it is so fine..it looks alot like thestyro foam "balls" of white styrofoam..except this stuff is way way smaller...almost a powder like talcum powder..look at the picture size the white stone as about the size of a nickel then think just how small the beads of ceramic are...imagine what a two inch wall of this stuff would be like....it doesnt seem scratchy like ceramic...stuff is sorta round...way i figure it would mix with plaster easy....so, one could pour it into the texture machine ,blast it on the walls do a heavy skip coat add it to the primer, spray it on,add it to the paint spray that on then get the micronal encapsulated wax and spray it on as the first surface of the interior....we are thinking of building a box and do just that,insulate it like a regular home ,stick data loggers in it, around it, under it, whatever... and collect data, on each and every corner and let it roll a winter..and the other idea is add it to the texture on one side of a duplex we just built and see if there is a discernable difference using identical boilers windows, piping and electrical ,ventaltion and room sizes and maybe if we are lucky occupant load with similar life styles ...and see if there is any appreciable difference... next winter.... i think that it would be difficult to get any real accurate information at that rate however, it might give a gut feeling if it was working to slow the loss of heat down in the summer winter and early spring, starting this year....

Weezbo

oops ...Well its sort of a related topic Mark. both of these

products seem to have some real potential in saving acoupel dollars for the habby home owner *~/:)

Mark Eatherton1

Google

ceramic insulating paint

Results: Results 1 - 10 of about 64,200 for ceramic insulating paint. (0.41 seconds

This stuff has been around a while, but I suspect it is similar to magnetic water conditioners...You have to believe:-)

Then again, you have to ask yourself, If it's so darned good, why isn't it mandatory??

I know a guy who has been pedaling this stuff for 20 years, and he's not rich enough to retire yet (Uncle Bud Norberg of Hydronic Sales)

But hey, I've got an open mind. He's offered to get me a gallon for free. Maybe I ought to take him up on it.

ME

Weezbo

Mark,Wouldnt government make the product Mandatory on all new Go

Government buildings? Think about what that would do to the energy being wasted...The Hy-Tech Solutions paint seems to me like it would be the stuff on all new homes...what my buddy and i are rolling around in our minds is...adding it to sheet rock texture would be the way to get it on the walls in mass*~/:) and if as Al Abruzzese says 10% energy saving would result in Trillions of dollars saved from painting it on the walls(of every home in America) ceilings roofs etc imagine a 1/4" of it on the surfaces in plaster /texture....then too, why isnt more being done to incorperate it right into product for construction in these here United States? some profound need to feed the oil companies the worlds economical benifits? whats up with That ?and as to how long has the idea been around...i bet light house keepers and potters ,sculpturs and kiln owners have considered the thought for quite a while....the space shuttle program developed this material therefore we should avail ourselves of the opportunities...one thing that immediately comes to mind is Appliances water heaters indirects things that have standby heat losses...

jerry scharf_3

some things make sense, others don't

ME,

Using it as a base coat for other paint makes not sense to me at all. Same kind of problem as bubble under slabs. Interior finish coats make some sense, but I remain dubious.

The one that really does make sense to me is the roof and exterior walls to reject solar gain. I don't know how badly dirt and dust would derate it, but it makes a whole lot of sense to reject that heat before it ever gets absorbed into the walls.

If it's in the range of $10-15 per gallon, it's a few hundred dollar investment that seems to have a shot at paying for itself. I will probably try it just to see how it works. It's something else to measure and analyze.

jerry

Larry Weingarten

Energy Design Update...

...has been debunking insulative paint for years. I think its highest and best use would be on those water treatment magnets. The myths just don't die. The two together might just work for nuclear waste containment ;~)

Yurs, Larry

Weezbo

it may be as you suggest that in paint it might be a bit thin...

the plaster on the other hand at 1/4" would be like one of the heat shields...Larry was the debunking done with controls in the gathering of evidential findings or was it more of Oh Yeah outer spacectechnology..ummmhu uuuum oh yeah :)sure i have a pound of this material maybe ican do some experiments like hot rod and mark do the math sorta thiing :)then if it is loony tunes only one to look bad will be me the gulliable fish

Dale Pickard

weezbo

You are the man! ME is right. I am too cynical too. You teach me otherwise.
Your'e a master of prose. Fear not in your investigaions, there are no stupid questions and there are no bad answers.

Dale

jerry scharf_3

can you post any of these articles

Larry,

I went to their web site, and $2500 was too much to spend to look at their articles. I would love to find some research into this.

By the way, how is your house coming along? I want to come down and see it some time when it's done.

thanks,
jerry

Weezbo

Thank you Dale.*~/:)it is as you say,i understand you as ...

you are too kind my problem is i have always been the eternal optomist and idealist...for example this evening in the honeywell control class i asked if they were contemplating an outdoor sensor that use sunlight and internal slab sensors to rationalize when best to turn off and on 2 stage thermostats to control thermal gain on the temperature differential over set time increments and move heat gain out of a room to a zone of greater thermal mass for storage while eliminating the call for heat in the rooms of greater thermal gain...reason is that in Alaska,during certain parts of the year,when the outside temp can be like 30 below ,the sunlight (not being obfuscated by the clouds) can increase the temps in a room fairly rapidly to the point that it out distances the traditional thermostats logic of add heat oh ooops too hot add cooling and my thought is simply to have it rationalize the impending oh Ooops and redirect the heat elsewhere and even pull the heat out of the room and store it else where..like say a Slab in a garage where as we know the car or truck is less likely to complain about the excessive heat this would not react as say a pre set timer would or totally miss the picture on a rainy cloudy or ice fogged day when little sunlight was making an impression on the room with high solar gain....the resedential controls of the honeywell tribe really have eased on into this century and the cost is way down from a decade ago...stuff that used to cost thousands now are in the hundred and a half range..it was indeed impressive how sharply the controls have turned into this century...oops i am meandering a bit point being i get the drift :)youre too kind and being a bit of a hard head i going to give the ceramic insulation a college try despite your favored singular act of kindness ...:) i hear you ..worse yet i am even having to trust that thought.. oki oki first thing i go get an ionic breeze hook it up to a water magnet and paint and texture the p'sos in to obscurity camaflauging them to the best of my ability ...:)because if a guy cant admitt a mistake maybe he should camoflauge it to blend in with the surroundings *~/:)

Dale Pickard

A class by yourself

Weezbo,

When I first went to read your stuff I kept wanting to write back and encourage you to hit the return key more often, you know to accomodate freaks like me, who want to divide their thoughts into pieces.
I've come to appreciate your stream of conciousness. It's the whole thought that counts.
When I worked for the Forest Service, I did "habitat typing" by identifying the plant communities that existed at different sites.
Plant communities vary across the landscape as the variables of the landscape change. In this area, variables like solar radition and water (closely related), have a stong effect on the plants that grow in a given location. North slopes have ferns and moss and fir and south slopes have pine and grasses.
As to how the plant communities changed as the landscape changed, well.....you had your "habitat type" people who believed in hard and fast lines, and you could see that in reality, as when crossing a creek that bridged a north slope and a south slope.
But there were also the continuum people, who saw that the vegetation varied continuously across the landscape. They were right too as there were times I could hike for miles through a plant community that was a mixture that fell between types. These mixtures were aberrations of sorts in that they are less predictable. Not so simple as the difference between north and south. These were the places we would find acres of wild stawberries.
Bear in mind here that the indiginous plant community reflects the indiginous biologic community as a whole.

Anyway, what I'm saying here is that you, Weezbo, are a continuum kind of guy. Your thoughts vary more continuously across the landscape. They want to be taken as a whole. Kinda like the difference between imagery and explicit prose. I've never been good at imagery.

Dale

Weezbo

*~/:) Sometimes You eat the bear ,Sometimes the bear ,

eats You the biological interupped landscapes with indiginous species show spectrum and clusters
not all aspects can be grasped when our thoughts are locked into a focal point that is within that spectrum..
We have the ability to grasp with the mind an entirely larger breadth of scope quite often by circumnambulatory perspective...this is when one looks at all views simultaneously...i am not speaking from the lofty view point of a shiddu who is able to "see from a point from outside space and time for thier abilities are grasping the very dream the dreamer dreams concentrating on the unfoldment of the flower along the horizon one may walk past the beauty of the landscape :)Humor is often like that, nonsequiter yet somehow the hidden became noticed i belive, you would have discovered, the bear would have stared right at you, not known what to think,..... and lumbered away into the marshlands

Larry Weingarten

Weezbo, Jerry...

I've been moving books over little at a time to the new house, so the EDUs that I need are now there. I'll exerpt from them once I have them back in hand. EDUs main complaint I remember has been the stunning claims...R-50 for a painted on coating sort of claim. EDU used to sell back issues for not-too-much. Haven't checked $ recently.

The house is slowly moving in the right direction. It's down to trim and fixtures. The radiant-in-wall gravity system is working nicely. It's REALLY hard to find a quiet 12VDC pump for the active solar part though. I'm testing Laing Ecocirc now. You're welcome to come have a look. If you wait 'till finished, it may be well into the next lifetime ;~)

Yours, Larry

Weezbo

Larry , hot rod once mentioned a rugshampooer pump...

or vacumme cleaner/ carpet cleaner size pump....i should pay someone to remember all this stuff for me:)

jerry scharf_3

certainly not R50 as a paint

I'll bet a space shuttle tile at 1/2" may well be that. I saw a plumber with a piece of ceramic he got from a friend at nasa. He was using a mapp torch with this resting on wood. The wood wasn't even warm when he was done.

The best paper I found seemed to indicate in an exterior application if might add something in the effective R6 range. It's not an exact comparison, but the research was done by the Florida Solar energy folks and seemed to be attacking the problem right.

Interesting that they did not recommend coating the south wall, with the loss of winter gain offsetting the improvement in summer cooling demand. Roofs appear to be the real win. I'll play with it for a couple years on a test wall, then think about coating my roof. The nice thing is it's a trivial retrofit on a pitcherd roof.

jerry

Mark Eatherton1

Bump...

for Tim Parsons with Maxxon, the Gypcrete people...

ME

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Larry Weingarten

Finally...

Jerry, the most recent article on insulative paint from EDU was March 2004. It's called "R-Value Scofflaws". It says there are federal penalties for manufacturers caught exaggerating R value of products. Despite this six manufacturers list their products on the web with nifty claims. "You can insulate.. and save 50% of your energy costs with just one coat of paint." "provides a thermal barrier up to R 24 equivalency." "in a 2 by 4 wall...the actual R value is 9.6. When the walls are painted... the R factor increases to 15.6." "provides a thermal barrier against heat and cold transmission as compared to (R-24) batt insulation." "an innovation that challenges the very foundation of the insulation market today by providing R-19 in 7 mill thickness." The article then goes on to say that the FTC seems unwilling to actually do anything about it and gives contact info for the person at the Federal Trade Commission who doesn't seem to care.

Yours, Larry