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High-Performance, Cost-Effective, Passive Solar Workshop
Earth Day, April 22, 8:30 AM-8:30 PM Connelly Center Villanova University
There will be an all-day workshop on passive solar heating in the Bryn Mawr
Room of the Connelly Center at Villanova University on Earth Day, Saturday,
April 22, beginning at 10 AM. The workshop will consist of a morning session,
with a basic tutorial on the fundamentals and simple mathematics of passive
solar heating, and a practical afternoon session, with open discussions and
designs for individual participants. The Bryn Mawr room and the cafeteria
in the Connelly Center will be open until 10 PM on Saturday, which will allow
the workshop to continue into the evening, if necessary.
Local engineer Nick Pine and math teacher Clarissa Coffey will describe a
new, simple, passive solar heating technique for houses, offices, schools,
greenhouses and other structures. The technique may be used for new houses
as well as for retrofits to existing houses: a low-thermal-mass sunspace
heats the house in average solar weather, and a higher-temperature,
high-thermal-mass "solar closet"/sauna inside the sunspace heats the house
during cloudy weather. Nick believes that this inexpensive technique can
provide close to 100% of the year-round space heating and water heating
requirements of a house in Pennsylvania.
The workshop will include a voluminous paper handout, a tutorial on the simple
mathematics of heatflow, and some examples of useful solar materials and tools,
including computer simulations. There will be a slide show with pictures of
many local buildings, with some specific suggestions for solar improvements
for each, including estimated costs of materials and numerical benefits. There
will also be some specific suggestions for further practical solar research.
The workshop fee is $50 for families, $35 for non-students, and $25 for
students. Reservations must be made by April 15. A reduction in fee of $5
will be made for payments received by April 15, and scholarships are
available. Email reservations are preferred, to nick@ece.vill.edu. Nick may
also be reached by phone at (610) 489-0545, by fax at (610) 489-7057 or by
mail at 821 Collegeville Road, Collegeville, PA, 19426. Participants may find
it useful to bring pictures or drawings of their houses to the workshop, with
approximate measurements, and an indication of compass direction.
This workshop is sponsored by the Villanova Environmental Group, as well as
the Villanova department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Tentative workshop agenda:
8:30-9:00 Registration
9:00-10:00 "Ohm's Law for Heatflow"
10:00-11:00 Thermal storage
11:00-12:00 Sunspaces and solar closets
12:00-1:00 Lunch break
1:00-2:00 Slide presentation
2:00-3:00 Materials and tools
3:00-5:00 Open discussions and individual designs
5:00-6:00 Dinner break
6:00-8:30 Continue discussions, designs, etc.
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Please register me for the High-Performance, Cost-Effective, Passive
Solar House Heating Workshop on April 22.
Name: _________________________________________________
Address: ______________________________________________
Phone number: _________________________________________
Email address, if any: ________________________________
Present heating system: _______________________________
South-facing wall area: _______________________________