Two innovative passive air thermosiphon houses in Santa Fe

Two new passive air thermosiphon heated homes are compared. The two houses utilize similar collectors, and are located near each other in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The two differ in geometry of storage. The first utilizes narrow vertical rockbeds internal to the building and arranged as room dividers. The second uses an underfloor rockbed below the entire heated area. Both systems operate without fans and heat the space by radiation from the walls/floor rather than direct airflow to the space. Both systems are designed for 75% SHF in approx. 2000 ft/sup 2/ homes. The systems are compared based on design data and preliminary operating test data from one of the systems. From a review of the literature, it appears that these are the first full-scale built examples of either type of convective collector/rockbed geometry which have been reported.