Cute, But Does It Work?

My wife came into the Eco-Shed yesterday while I was working in there and straight away told me to “turn down the damn heat.” It was so warm in the place that I was stripped down to my T-shirt, and such luxuries are expensive when it’s five degrees below freezing outside — which it is these days.  “Just turn it down and put on a sweater!,” she implored.

But the heat was free. This is The Eco-Shed’s first full winter and so long as we have sunny skies — like we do right now — I’ll be damned if it the place doesn’t warm up all by itself just as we hoped it would.

For those of you just joining us, it’s a passive solar building with generous amounts of Low-E “Hard Coat” glass, which admits more thermal radiation, combined with a concrete floor that soaks up that heat, and excellent insulation to keep it inside. If anything, it works a little too well, it was a bit of a solar oven in there yesterday afternoon. I pulled the shades, bumped up the ventilation system and cracked a window.

I bleemed off the shed weather report to Dan Parke , my architect. “Beautiful,” he replied. Indeed.