page_title: Autonomous building
section_title: Heating
hierarchical_section_title: Autonomous building / Systems / Heating
context_page_description: An autonomous building is a building designed to be operated independently from infrastructural support services such as the electric power grid, gas grid, municipal water systems, sewage treatment systems, storm drains, communication services, and in some cases, public roads.
  Advocates of autonomous building describe advantages that include reduced environmental impacts, increased security, and lower costs of ownership. Some cited advantages satisfy tenets of green building, not independence per se. Off-grid buildings often rely very little on civil services and are therefore safer and more comfortable during civil disaster or military attacks. For example, Off-grid buildings would not lose power or water if public supplies were compromised.
  As of 2018, most research and published articles concerning autonomous building focus on residential homes.
  In 2002, British architects Brenda and Robert Vale said that
  It is quite possible in all parts of Australia to construct a 'house with no bills', which would be comfortable without heating and cooling, which would make its own electricity, collect its own water and deal with its own waste...
context_section_description: Most autonomous buildings are designed to use insulation, thermal mass and passive solar heating and cooling. Examples of these are trombe walls and other technologies as skylights.
  Passive solar heating can heat most buildings in even the mild and chilly climates. In colder climates, extra construction costs can be as little as 15% more than new, conventional buildings. In warm climates, those having less than two weeks of frosty nights per year, there is no cost impact.
  The basic requirement for passive solar heating is that the solar collectors must face the prevailing sunlight (south in the Northern Hemisphere, north in the Southern Hemisphere), and the building must incorporate thermal mass to keep it warm in the night.
  A recent, somewhat experimental solar heating system "Annualized geo solar heating" is practical even in regions that get little or no sunlight in winter. It uses the ground beneath a building for thermal mass. Precipitation can carry away the heat, so the ground is shielded with 6 m skirts of plastic insulation. The thermal mass of this system is sufficiently inexpensive and large that it can store enough summer heat to warm a building for the whole winter, and enough winter cold to cool the building in summer.
  In annualized geo solar systems, the solar collector is often separate from (and hotter or colder than) the living space. The building may actually be constructed from insulation, for example, straw-bale construction. Some buildings have been aerodynamically designed so that convection via ducts and interior spaces eliminates any need for electric fans.
  A more modest "daily solar" design is very practical.  For example, for about a 15% premium in building costs, the Passivhaus building codes in Europe use high performance insulating windows, R-30 insulation, HRV ventilation, and a small thermal mass. With modest changes in the building's position, modern krypton- or argon-insulated windows permit normal-looking windows to provide passive solar heat without compromising insulation or structural strength. If a small heater is available for the coldest nights, a slab or basement cistern can inexpensively provide the required thermal mass. Passivhaus building codes, in particular, bring unusually good interior air quality, because the buildings change the air several times per hour, passing it through a heat exchanger to keep heat inside.
  In all systems, a small supplementary heater increases personal security and reduces lifestyle impacts for a small reduction of autonomy. The two most popular heaters for ultra-high-efficiency houses are a small heat pump, which also provides air conditioning, or a central hydronic (radiator) air heater with water recirculating from the water heater.  Passivhaus designs usually integrate the heater with the ventilation system.
  Earth sheltering and windbreaks can also reduce the absolute amount of heat needed by a building. Several feet below the earth, temperature ranges from 4 °C (39 °F) in North Dakota to 26 °C (79 °F), in Southern Florida. Wind breaks reduce the amount of heat carried away from a building.
  Rounded, aerodynamic buildings also lose less heat.
  An increasing number of commercial buildings use a combined cycle with cogeneration to provide heating, often water heating, from the output of a natural gas reciprocating engine, gas turbine or stirling electric generator.
  Houses designed to cope with interruptions in civil services generally incorporate a wood stove, or heat and power from diesel fuel or bottled gas, regardless of their other heating mechanisms.
  Electric heaters and electric stoves may provide pollution-free heat (depending on the power source), but use large amounts of electricity. If enough electricity is provided by solar panels, wind turbines, or other means, then electric heaters and stoves become a practical autonomous design.
caption: Schematic of an active solar heating system