Matt Cropp

Some months ago, lessons learned from my previous adventures with managing summer cooling in the passive solar building where the Lab calls home sent me down a rabbit hole in the opposite direction: maximizing thermal gain in the winter time!

One of the main trade-offs with traditional passive solar design lies in the sizing of the south-facing windows. On the one hand, the more glazing a building has, the more solar heat it can capture and store on sunny days. On the other hand, when night…

The building Lab B occupies at 12-22 North Street was built in 1979/80 as a state-of-the-art passive solar demonstration project. With R-40+ wall insulation, a large brick thermal mass bisecting the building, and large arrays of south-facing windows on both the first and second floors, 12-22 gets and stays toasty in the winter.

The seasonal logic of overhangs in passive solar design.

While the front overhang helps a bit, it also gets toasty in the summer-time (particularly the southern…

We set up a Mastodon account. Toot @ us here.

Regular Activities:

• Public Hours happening every Thursday from 7pm – (at least) 9pm in the space.
• Repair Cafe 3rd Saturday of the Month from 11am-3pm. Volunteers and broken things welcome!
• Monthly Member Meeting 2nd Saturday of the Month at 7pm, sometimes a potluck starting at 6pm. Drop a line about attending if you are interested in learning about joining the Lab.
• Our most frequently active public online space is our Discord Server.

Possible…