One or two may recall an earlier thread of mine, https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=85625, on designing your own home. Been in 3 months now and everything is working well. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅
Part of the reason for going 2 storey was the options it gives for improving heat flow in the house from my main heating source, a wood burning heater - Arrow 2400.
The physics of this are simple - heated air will rise in preference to going sideways. In a single storey house people get around this by putting in heat shifters or even using a pedestral fan in a doorway.
At its simplest my house has a kitchen/living area downstairs on the west side with the staircase 1.5m from the heater therein. Obviously plenty of heat goes up the staircase. Upstairs on the far east side of the house I have put a large floor vent (800x300) through into the laundry below. This allows the airflow to do a complete circuit of the house back to the heater area, unaided by any fans.
I measured the airflow through the vent with a Kestrel 2000 anemometer and it was 1.5kph which translates to around 5.5m³/min - an acceptable airflow considering it is 24/7.
When I first lit the heater the laundry temp. was 17.1 (morning) and by evening it was 18.8 and was around 22 today (3 days later). The max.outside temps. have been 13 -17 degrees of late
The principle of thermosyphon has worked very well and the only trouble now is that the house is a bit too warm, such that we are opening the windows when the sun is shining.
I should note that this house is not of an 'open plan' and I think it would be difficult to get a thermosyphon to work in that environment.