The Enertia Building System
The History Channel and a division of the Inventors Hall of Fame recently announced their awards for a national inventors challenge for 2007. The winner of the top prize was Michael Sykes, for his invention of the “Enertia Building System”. The revolutionary home design is actually a model of the Earth itself incorporating a sunspace which absorbs energy and heat from the sun, and an artificial atmosphere which releases the heat and energy throughout the day as needed.
One of the biggest targets by environmentalists is the construction industry as the amount of lumber used by that segment is seemingly unending. Ironically, the Enertia home relies upon solid wood from real trees. The key to the green aspect of the design is the use of yellow pine which is quickly and easily grown, making it a sustainable and renewable resource.
In the Enertia® Building System, solid Energy-Engineered(tm) wood walls replace siding, framing, insulation, and paneling. An air flow and access channel, or Envelope, runs around the building, just inside the walls – creating a miniature biosphere. Here solar heated air circulates, pumping and boosting geothermal energy from beneath the house, storing it in the massive wood walls. Thermal inertia causes the house to “float” between the cycles of night and day, and even between the seasons.
Many aspects of the Enertia® House are unusual and innovative – but backed up by science, common-sense, and prototype homes across America. In fact, each aspect listed below increases the energy efficiency of the building. The effect is Synergistic – equal to more than the sum of the parts. The Enertia® House can make more energy than it uses!
In 1981 the National Institute of Standards and Technology constructed six test buildings in Gaithersburg, Maryland and tested them for energy efficiency. Much to their surprise, Building 5, with walls made of solid wood, was the most energy efficient. This was attributed to “thermal inertia,” a phenomenon where the solid wood walls stored energy during the day, and released it during the night. Actually the energy efficiency of solid wood is well known in the Scandinavian countries where it is the prevalent method of building. (Its long life is well known too. When interviewed during the 1994 Winter Olympics, a Lillehammer couple casually remarked that their solid wood home had been built in 1406!)
29 May 2007 | Construction, Green Building, Technology | Comments
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