Whoops! Too Hot!

This is upper west part of ARC08 South wall. See the wet looking spots on the glazing panels near the right?

I was wondering why those panels looked wet all the time.

Then I noticed that, inside the house, that portion of the wall seemed colder than the other wall at night and warmer during a sunny day. Curiosity got the best of us. Friday we drilled a 3 inch whole through the sheetrock and found that all the styrene foam in the sip was melted away and the resulting cavity was 225 degrees F.

We immediately took the glazing of of the area and then remembered that we had removed those three solar panels last fall, putting the glazing back so it looks good. The walls were covered with ice and water shield to protect them from leaks.

The black tarry ice and water shield soaked up the sun and got really hot, dripping molten tar onto the glazing.

For good measure, we removed the glazing from the rest of the solar panels and drilled a few holes to see if the sips behind them were also damaged.

This is what the house looked like before the glazing was removed.

This is what the house looks like with the glazing removed and a few test holes drilled.


We will not be pursuing this experimental plastic hot water solar panel design project anyway. It has been replaced by better projects. So we will be removing these panels and finishing those walls in a different way. Meanwhile, removing the glazing reduced the temperatures by about 100 degrees.

Our next move is to repair the damaged sips by re-enforcing them and filling them with closed cell foam for strength and insulation. Some of sips behind solar panels are slightly damaged; some of the foam no longer firmly stuck to the outer OSB. Those panels will have small holes drilled in the outer OSB and the proper glue injected to fill the little gaps.

Window project

Wayne is testing the mechanics of the moveable window insulation.

NARC heat pump plan 2.0

This has merit over the last version.  To be cleaned up and redrawn

Notes on Pedaling switch

We added details to our idea of making a pedal powered unit that switches the power for a TV, game console, or whatever.
Added concept of having a gauge showing charge, or minutes of time before they have to pedal again.
Added concept of locked cover over outlets to lock in the power plug.
Package could be small enough to be affordable since it's not actually generating power, but just closing a contact. Would need a capacitor or something to hold a charge for up to 10 or 15 minutes.
Would require adjustable resistance if not actually generating the power.
Could be integrated into a nice, semi-reclined chair unit with speakers for video game consoles.
One for the living room may send a wireless signal to the switch box so the pedal unit could move from couch to couch to chair.