[Greenbuilding] Trombe walls are extremely inefficient solarcollectors

[Nick Pine]

"Larry Kinney" <larry_kinney at comcast.net> writes:

> Exterior insulating shutters put in place as soon as the net of the 
> losses to the outside exceed solar gains ensure that most of the 
> "losses" are to the inside of the conditioned envelope, where they 
> aren't really losses at all.

That would help a direct gain house too, but where do we buy these 
shutters, and who's going to move them twice a day, and what's their 
R-value, including air leaks at the edges, and what do we do about snow 
and wind and freezing rain?

We might fill a glazing cavity with soap bubble foam at night, but I'd 
vote for a low-mass sunspace with an insulated wall between the living 
space and the sunspace and airflow between them during the day that 
automatically stops at night.

Nick