I know that this may be better addressed in the other forum that deals with passive solar, but I was wondering about something that relates to both ICF building and passive solar.
Is anyone aware of successful building practices that marry the two technologies?
I have a neighbor building a new house across town that is per the design and spec of a guy who operates under the banner "Adirondack Alternative Energy." He has developed an allegedly successful system design that has been executed per his plans and oversight over 340 times over thirty years.
I will try to describe the system as succinctly as possible. Site the house with a long wall facing south. Leave adjacent terrain open and free of trees for a minimum of 100 feet to south, east, and west. Few windows in north elevation, some in E and W, and plenty, including skylights, go in S wall and roofs.
Under the lower level preferably a walkout basement, goes 12 inches of compacted gravel on undisturbed soil. Drain this with good perimeter drain lines. Then, in sequence, goes a layer of #30 felt, a membrane equivalent to a swimming pool liner, two layers of 2" foilfaced Thermax foam, then a 2" rat slab. Atop this goes a web of ducting, which then gets encased in a 12" thick slab of concrete. The house is built atop this, with the edge of the slab mass being the "footing."
A central stack somewhere in the middle 1/3 of the plan sits atop the mainline header of the duct spiderweb that got built into the slab mass below the basement. That stack, which contains a low speed fan plus some other things that might be used to provide supplemental heat, functions as the "return air" stack for the house system.
The key to heat retention is the two layers of 2" foilfaced Thermax, with outer membrane, which began as a layer under the slab mass under the basement, then continues up the sides cladding the treated wood foundation, then goes up on the outside of the exterior walls, through the overhanging rafters, and connects to the layer that goes atop the planked roof deck. The building has a well-detailed membrane-wrapped foam layer on all its six sides.
Supplemental heat is delivered in the deepest cold parts of the Adirondack winter by means of one or a combination of the following, all incorporated into that central stack: a wood or coal or pellet or gas stove, coils with HW from the oversized water heater, or coils from a ground source heat pump.
What I am wondering is whether all the stuff done with the walls could be substituted with ICF walls and proper detailing.
Two pics are attached, one showing the ducting mostly in place prior to slab mass being poured, and the other shows a typical house with a diagram showing the heatflow concept.
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