The picture here-below shows the arrangement of the water-tanks constituting the heat-storage of the system and allowing autonomy of heating of the building all over the year:
In the upper part is located the water-stirrer. The rest of the columns contains about 40m3 of water. The stirrer remains about 1 meter above the water.
Four independant auxiliary water-tanks of 170m3 each, are arranged in the underground basement of the building. They are thoroughly insulated with 1-meter-thick polystyrene outer walls.
The management of the temperature of each one of the tanks will be controlled automatically, by means of pumps transferring the water from one tank to the other according to the needs. One of the tanks will be maintained at the optimum temperature required for the normal operation of the heating-floors of the building. One of the tanks will accept all the extra heat contributions, so that its temperature could be driven up to 70°C. The third tank will be the last one to receive the heat flows, in order to optimize the yield of the solar heating panels when operating.
The fourth tank will be used as a swimming-pool and jaccuzzi as it will be explained in the chapter 10, dedicated to the occupation of the building.
An advantage of the underground location, is that the temperature of the soil at 5-meter depth is about constant all over the year, which minimizes the heat-losses of the seasonal water-storage.
Once the main column and the horizontal plinth have been poured in place, the outer-walls are erected all around. They are resistant enough to support the building walls above.
Then a layer of 10cm-thick dense polystyrene is installed all over the 20mx20m footprint of the building. The 4 auxiliary water-tanks are then constructed as stand-alone floating entities, so that no stress can generate cracks and further leaks. The polystyrene is dense enough to bear the load of the filled water-tanks. It provides the required insulation and flexibility to the system.
Those tanks are 2.5-meters high. They are closed on top independantly, and provided with one inspection-hatch each, so that they can be easily visited and equipped (heat-pumps exchangers ... ).
The remaining 1-meter thick gap between the tanks and the outer walls is filled with polystyrene beads resulting from the crushing of recuperated packaging stuff, and then carefully compressed.
A further overall insulation layer is put and a floating floor is poured over. The resulting underground technical-room is used to install all the water-pumps, heat-pumps, stationnary battery-banks, 220V inverter, and store spare-parts etc ...
The long pipes of the Canadian well converge from the 4 directions and are burried below the water-tanks.
The long pipes of the Canadian well converge from the 4 directions and are burried below the water-tanks.
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