Dover Sun House
The Dover Sun House was built in the 1940s as part of a long-term research project by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with the aim of making solar energy usable for people.
MIT started building solar houses after receiving a donation from Godfrey Lowell Cabot in 1938 , stipulating that it would be used to convert solar energy for human consumption.
The Dover Sun House is the sixth solar house that was not financed by MIT, but by the Boston heiress and sculptor Amelia Peabody. This was necessary because the idea of using sodium sulphate to store energy was rejected. This forced Maria Telkes from MIT to implement her idea with sponsorship money.
Emergence
The implementation of the Dover Sun House had a lot of media coverage in its time, which was due to the all-women team. The fact that it was the first house with a passive solar heating concept was pushed somewhat into the background. The architecture of the house was designed by the architect Eleanor Raymond . Maria Telkes from MIT designed the energy concept.
heater
The house was heated exclusively with solar energy, with a very unusual concept. A solar collector, which consisted of two glass plates and was closed by a black metal plate, was oriented to the south. The air was led to the energy storage unit via fans. 28 tons of sodium sulfate, also known as Glauber's salt, were used to store the heat. The energy was used in the change of physical state, i.e. the melting and resolidification of sodium sulfate at a temperature of 32 ° C.
Building use
In 1948, the Dover Sun House in Dover was completed and relatives of Maria Telkes lived in the house until three years later problems with the technology of the heating system arose. Due to the high temperatures, the seals became porous over time and the collectors lost a lot of their performance. The Glauber's salt was also not stable and had to be changed annually. This also led to the tanks with the salt rusting and leaking quickly.
In 1954 the solar heating system was replaced by a conventional oil stove.
In 2010 the house was demolished.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ MIT website: Solar Houses
- ^ MIT website: Dover Sun House
- ^ Portrait of Eleanor Raymond in Zzzebra
- ↑ lgdata: Solar Houses at MIT - Dover Sun House (PDF; 71 kB)
- ↑ a b Marc O'Riain: 1948: The Dover Sun House - passivehouseplus.ie. Retrieved June 9, 2019 (UK English).
- ^ A b Andrew Nemethy: In 1948, we were human guinea pigs in the strangest house in Dover. Retrieved June 10, 2019 .