This might be a rambling first post, so please bear with me. I am currently restoring a federal style brick house in mid-MO and I have a few "request for suggestions" on the potential passive cooling effects I have noticed due to the unique construction. A bit of background, my wife and I are currently living in the 2nd of 2 floors (no basement) and are gutting/restoring the 1st floor in our own time. Once it's complete, we'll move downstairs and finish the top floor. The house interior plaster isn't salvedgable, the wiring and most of the plumbing needs to be replaced, so I'm not destroying a pristine historic gem here. Some about the construction. The house is 3 wythe brick on the lower level exterior AND interior walls and just brick exterior/stick interior on the 2nd floor. There is no insulation, but we are framing/insulating the exterior walls to the interior to an ~R23. There is an old 15x25 wine cellar that is bermed below grade into the first floor (which is where I think the potential comes from) with a vent to the outside. Essentially there are tons and tons of heat storage and passive cooling potential. On to the questions... How can I utilize this most effectively to cool the rest of the house? Ducting would be very difficult with the current construction. This summer, we have had 3 weeks of almost 100* and it's 75* downstairs with no hvac and very little insulation yet and 55* in the cellar. How can I get this coolth upstairs properly? Please help! -PE

There is a functional limit to the "coolth" stored down there. Save it for your wine. If you don't have any wine, then the best plan is to encourage your friends to store theirs. ;-)

I've read a few books from the 70s that talk about cool rooms and earth tubes, but haven't seen much action on these techniques. I assume they don't really deliver then?

I typically discourage the long term storage of alcohol. It's a clear indication you're not drinking it fast enough. Now storing your friends wine... I think you're on to something there.

There is a certain limited potential, but once you start exporting it upstairs, it starts to go away. For example, I have an ICF wine cellar and a "cool storage" room that maintain temperature by benefit of contact with the surrounding earth. They need to be insulated from living space both above and to the side in order to maintain that temperature and the ventilation rate needs to be carefully controlled so as not to raise the temperature within too much.

Posted By morlock on 26 Jul 2012 09:08 AM
I've read a few books from the 70s that talk about cool rooms and earth tubes, but haven't seen much action on these techniques. I assume they don't really deliver then?

I typically discourage the long term storage of alcohol. It's a clear indication you're not drinking it fast enough. Now storing your friends wine... I think you're on to something there.

Earth tubes prove problematic from a fungues & mold point of view in places with the summer dew points as high as yours. It can be done and done right, but it is more trouble than it's worth unless you have a VERY stringent specification to meet.

It does not take a huge fan/duct to reduce or eliminate air temperature stratification over 30' of height, but it's not going to provide effective cooling- the heat-exchange with the subsoil is too inefficient to handle house-sized cooling loads.

You may be limited by the historical commission on what you can do, but reducing the direct solar gain from windows & roofs is the first line of cooling load reduction.  CRRC rated "cool roof" materials come in a lot of colors other than "white", and is moderately more effective than radiant-barriers on the interior.  Awning overhangs shading south facing windows kills a lot of window gain- the killer to treat would be east or west facing windows.  Exterior shades work best but if you're allowed to install heat rejecting low-gain windows that would still be worth it.

I'm curious how you're insulating on the interior of the brick, and a bit concerned about how you're handling bulk-water issues at the windows & doors.  Older uninsulated buildings rarely had any window & door flashing, and relied upon rapid drying to the interior to handle any moisture loads. Also, insulating between the brick and the interior leaves the brick at a lower temp, and some consideration has to be made for wintertime moisture/condensation loading issues where the structural joist timbers meet the brick.

Dana1, Thanks for your time replying to this thread. I am a little reluctant to change the exterior look of the house due to it being against city ordinance in a historic district. Luckily the east and west windows are well shaded by trees. I had considered simply refurbishing the existing double hung single pane windows and using heat rejecting films, but I go back and forth on that. For insulation, I'm following John Straube's advice in this link; essentially framing the interior with a inch of closed cell and rock wool in the bays. I hadn't considered modified the flashing at doors and windows though, but maybe I should. Do you have any suggestions or documentation? http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/digests/bsd-114-interior-insulation-retrofits-of-load-bearing-masonry-walls-in-cold-climates/files/bsd114_masonry_retrofit.pdf

Your climate conditions are nowhere near as stringent as the cold climate issues addressed in the BSC document, but the approach is sound even in your climate zone. An inch of closed cell spray polyurethane between the masonry & studwall is readily justifiable on air-sealing and whole-wall R-value grounds. More than 2" probably isn't though.

I don't have any documentation to point you to on good/better/best approaches to flashing antique windows on historic buildings, but there's quite a range of older construction out there, so what might work in one situation might not work in yours, or conversely. It's something to keep in mind though, especially when you're slowing the drying path toward the interior with closed cell spray foam. Since the drying times after rainstorms for the window framing will now be an order of magnitude slower, handling the bulk moisture loads is more critical. Using flashing on windows & doors is a relatively new technique, and may or may not have been part of the original construction. Google-up on how masonry wall windows are flashed on new construction, see what can be readily applied to re-installing your historical windows.