I am working on a housing development project and I am thinking of putting in trombe walls. Recently I have heard about using the floor as a heating source rather than the walls. Does anyone know of this new technology???

The Trombe Wall has been around for quite a while. It is an effective way to heat a passive solar home. Using the floor or other large structure as a thermal mass to gain heat during the day is another tried and true method to heat homes. Both have their pluses and minuses. We have used the floors in our homes because it is simple to do and being in the northern latitudes allows us to use the floor for heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. Do a google search for passive solar heating and you should come up with some very helpful information.

ICF Contractor

Now my next quandry is with concrete flooring with a water wall. So how I want to do this is with direct gain system where the floor is heated up but inside I have a water wall. Has anyone done this before? and does anyone know how to ultimately do this process?

I've been surfing the web for days and my clicker finger hurts! I'm looking for some way to funnel the abundant sun we have in San Diego into my house in the winter. I live in the mountains and it does get cold here in winter (though obviously not like, say, North Dakota!) - but we get sun too. Unfortunately, my south facing wall is 3 floors high, with the bottom floor a basement. So I can't just add a greenhouse or some kind of Trombe wall like thing to the south face. The living area does have large windows to the south which are great during the day, and there is good insulation so the heat stays a while, but I keep thinking there must be a way to store heat for night too. The west wall is a slope where it might be possible to attach a greenhouse or some such thing, but it doesn't get as much sun (though enough, maybe?) as the south wall. I'm getting a bit obsessed with the idea of harvesting this sunshine. I'm off grid, so the only significant commercial energy I use is propane for heating and cooking. Don't want a wood stove (allergies and no desire to chop wood). I just really want to use the sun. But how? Does anyone know a reputable ...what? uhm, alt energy designer, engineer, I'm not sure what to call such a person, who could help me figure this out? Thank you. (Sorry, wrong thread, but I don't know how to move this question!)

In my own house I have two 10x12 glass overhead doors facing south for passive solar gain, it works well on sunny winter days. Yesterday it was a high of 14 F and raised the temp from 64 to 68 in the 3200 sf house. I am not sure what the doors lose at night, but I am going to install SIP sliding doors on the exterior to close at night. Today, outside it reached a high of 14 F and 70 inside from the passive solar. This will be the first winter, so we will see how it goes.
This is with a dark stained concrete floor.

One of the best ways you can store heat is in water tanks. You could install a solar thermal collector and heat your floors with piping under the floors. To get a good overview of best practices go to http://homepower.com/, or http://www.usgbc.org. I use a wood sawdust pellet stove at my LEED Platinum office and there is no problem with smell or combustion gases in the living space. And it's considered renewable energy by the USGBC http://green-cincinnati.com/category/green-cincinnnati-leed-project/. Next we are working on LEED Certification of our Frank Lloyd Wright home in Cincinnati http://green-cincinnati.com/category/flw-boulter-house/. Good luck.