Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: common house refridgerators

[Paul Barton-Davis (pbd]

In message <34CD07A4.4675 [at] ed.co.sanmateo.ca.us>you write:
>At a permaculture class, I heard about using such underground tunnels
>both for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter--particularly
>in reference to greenhouses.  I will see if I can find out more.

The Center for Sustainable Living at Wilson College, Chambersburg PA
has these in their big greehouse. They (well, really just Steve :)
were really enthusiastic about them when they put the tubes in, but as
a couple of years have gone by, they don't seem to be working out so
well. They now tend to rely on a very hot compost pile for heat, and fans
for cooling in summer. I think Steve did a cost analysis and it seems
that the engine needed to keep the air circulating through the tunnels
costs more and tends to need maintainance to a point where it simply
doesn't pay. A pure convection system would avoid this, but it
wouldn't work as efficiently either.

If you want to try asking them about it: wc-csl [at] mail.cvn.net

--pbd