Everyone Laughed at His 'Crazy' Tunnel System—Then it Heated His Cabin to 65°F With ZERO Firewood скачать в хорошем качестве

Everyone Laughed at His 'Crazy' Tunnel System—Then it Heated His Cabin to 65°F With ZERO Firewood

Everyone Laughed at His 'Crazy' Underground Tunnel System — Then it Heated His Entire Cabin to 65°F With Zero Firewood In 1883, a Virginia mountaineer named Elias Garrett built something neighbors called insane: a 40-foot underground tunnel running from a south-facing hillside opening, sloping downward, then back up into his cabin's stone foundation. People thought he'd lost his mind digging a tunnel to nowhere. But Garrett understood solar heating principles nobody else recognized: during sunny winter days, the hillside tunnel entrance absorbed solar heat. Warm air would flow down into the cool earth tunnel, be stored in the surrounding soil and stone, then rise through the cabin entrance as it warmed - creating natural convection circulation. The earth mass (thousands of cubic feet) acted as a thermal battery, storing daytime solar heat and releasing it into the cabin for 12-16 hours. On sunny days, his cabin heated to 60-65°F with ZERO fire - just underground solar collection. Cloudy days required small fire, but nothing like neighbors burning wood constantly. His family used 1/10th the firewood of standard cabins. The "crazy tunnel" was a passive solar earth-tube heating system 100 years before modern builders "invented" the concept.