The Greenhouse Climate Battery: How & Why It Works

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

If you want an update of how this system is holding up during the winter, watch this video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rmnOm2Ogj7GnpK8

[@naturekins604]

We have a geothermal greenhouse /climate battery in zone 3 Canada and add extra heat with a wood stove. We have only one summer and this is the second winter. We have a much drier soil so no drainage needed . We put a 4' earth burm against the back wall for extra cooling in summer and a bit of extra insulation in winter. The best thing is it really helps with humidity control we find. Though glycol is a more efficient heat transfer it doesn't help with humidity so we would still stick with the air personally. Nice to see another geothermal set up :) We are all learning together.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Thanks so much for sharing your experience and it's interesting to see the differences between our locations/soils. I love the idea of putting a berm against the back wall. Our summer was intensely hot so if it can help with that, it's probably worth doing too! How thick would you say the berm is? And thanks for the words of encouragement - we are all learning together, for sure! :)

[@RedneckHillbillies]

I'd never heard of a climate battery until last night on another channel. I'm so glad one of your videos popped up in my feed today. Definitely something to consider for our future greenhouse build.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

So cool that you're learning more about it before you get ready to build a greenhouse. There are so many awesome ways to make greenhouses work even better :)

[@zakbrinkhoff324]

Look up earth tube

[@juliahelland6488]

Thanks for sharing this! 💯❣️

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Thanks for taking the time to post your lovely comment :)

[@TheOldMayfieldPlace]

I had never heard of a Climate Batter. Thank you for explaining this. I'm going to have to show this to The Farmer since we are getting ready to build a larger greenhouse. Great info!

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Yay I'm so glad this helped introduce a new greenhouse idea for you and The Farmer. :)

[@MAD42]

thank you for the great video. very well explained! very nice greenhouse. keep it up!

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Thanks so much for taking the time to comment :)

[@MH55YT]

thanks for the video

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

You're welcome!

[@SimpleWildLiving]

Hi Nathalie, great video, you explained it so well. We look forward to all you updates. Our GAHT Build was in Mongolia were it is zone 2a so the build was quite different. You welcome to see the build at we have the whole thing on our Channel.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Wow that's amazing, I'm excited to go check it out!

[@luclussier5276]

This is such an awesome project!!! Can't wait to see your one year review with pros and cons!!! Are you using/storing the sump pump water for watering plants?

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Yay thanks so much! Would love to have you and family over sometime if the timing works out, I'm know we're still pretty far away! And we haven't used the water from the sump pump to water inside, but I'd love to bring it up to store for that too. Right now it just gets sent out of the greenhouse, but that's a brilliant idea!

[@showme360]

So the water collected in the sump, could it not be used for watering your plants, and have stored in one corn of the green with an over flow pipe to the out side, because I would of thought that this water would have filter minerals in it which would be good for plant growth.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Yes absolutely, that's pretty much how we've adapted to using it and I made a little video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g5XIZYGLlMRqbaM

[@shawnlamothe4187]

What CFM fans did you use?

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

They are 200 CFM, and we got them from here: vortexpowerfans.com/vtx-series By our calculations we may have done better with higher CFMs but these were also more within the budget!

[@JohnGuest45]

@@waykeeperfarmandnerdery Assuming a completely lossless system 200cfm in and 200cfm out), you need a minimum of one fan per 1200 cubic feet of greenhouse volume. Enough to turn over the entire air volume 10x per hour.

[@hopechannelcat5462]

are you in canada or us? asking because of the depth of your pipes. or what growing zone? thanks

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

We're in Canada, just on the other side of Lake Erie (Buffalo, NY) - our zone is 6b. And the depth of our pipes could certainly have been lower... one issue we have is that our water table is also pretty high, so it was a balancing act.

[@serviodeo]

Hi Natalie, I am looking for ways to heat my greenhouse other than running an extension cord with a heater attached to it. Right now I have a greenhouse tent but I hope to get an actual greenhouse. Are there any resources on how to get started with a climate battery? Are there battery kits or can I build one on my own? How much heat does the system produce?

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Hi there! I recommend taking a look at the work of this website: crmpi.org/ There are also companies that specialize in designing and helping source materials for climate batteries, like this one: atmosgreenhouse.com/products-services I haven't used them myself but they are very knowledgeable and can help steer you in the right direction!

[@zakbrinkhoff324]

Composing. Used oil burning heater. Dig below frost line. Earth tube. Etc

[@colinbateman8233]

Are you below the frost level with your pipes

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Hi Colin! Yes, as far as I can tell we're below the frost level with our pipes. We have an interesting challenge where we're located because we didn't want to go so low that we hit the water table... since we are close to a lake and we have dug a pond, we knew we would get there if we kept going deeper.

[@ScottYdo]

Where is the link?

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Thanks for asking Scott, sorry I missed that. Here are the links: Link for The Forest Garden Greenhouse (amazon affiliate link): amzn.to/3YTNJQs Link for the organization's website: crmpi.org/

[@aradakessian1939]

Hi! Please could you tell me by how many degrees the temperature increased in winter in the greenhouse? And what is your locations standard temperature in winter

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

It's hard to say since we didn't have the greenhouse in the winter without the climate battery. I would say it's just a few degrees higher. We're in zone 6b so our temperatures often go to around -10C.

[@cedriccbass-jp8ky]

Did you perforate the pipes underground?

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Yes, they came perforated.

[@JohnGuest45]

@@waykeeperfarmandnerdery Its best to buy non perforated tubing and cut a straight slit partway through the corrugations (just a few mm deep) and locate the slit at the bottom during installation. This ensures the condensate can fully drain. The holes or slots in standard perforated tubing are normally located in the valleys which results in water collecting in the bottom of every corrugation. Water in the tubing is detrimental to the heating performance.

[@PETERSWAN4]

I have just built a climate battery greenhouse but have not decided which fans to use please can you tell me what you have used and why?

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Hi Peter! These are the ones we went with: vortexpowerfans.com/vtx-series My husband is the one that did the research on these and I think it was a combination of what we could find in our region and also how much air it could move. We could have gone with the more expensive and more air moved per hour/power, but we wanted to test first. Hope that helps!

[@JohnGuest45]

@@waykeeperfarmandnerdery I hate to say it but the fan should be chosen during the design phase. The greenhouse air volume multiplied by the desired number of air changes per hour gives you the required air flow rate. For example, a 1000 cubic foot greenhouse air volume and 10 air changes per hour, would require a fan capable of delivering 167cfm, after accounting for the losses in the tubing layout which should be minimized by careful design.

[@chuckmoyher493]

I thought rule for underground no longer than 30 Runs? Yours are close to 60’ with verticals back to grade elevation.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

I wish I had that rule ahead of time - most of what we went with was from books and website and they didn't mention these specifically.

[@JohnGuest45]

@@waykeeperfarmandnerdery The rule of thumb is to keep the tube lengths as short as practical. The surface area available for heat exchange is the same for 1x 100ft tube or 10 x 10ft tubes. You can run 30x more air through the10 tube system. The low air flow rate in 100ft tube will result in the air dropping to the mass temperature in the first10ft and then coasting through the remaining 90ft without any further change in temperature. Ideally, you want the entire length of the tube to be actively transferring heat.

[@matthewlarue1883]

Wouldn't you want it deeper than 3ft. At least 5ft I would think and larger area of pipe I would think.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Yes, I think that would have been better - we also have a high water table, so we had to make some tough calls.

[@JohnGuest45]

Its not about the tubing so much as the amount of air you can run through it.

[@rpw53]

What would be a good cost estimate for the installation of your "climate battery"? I don't know who came up with that term, but geothermal is a way better description...

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

It depends a lot on the size, materials you can source, and then the labor/tractor rentals. Ours was in the 5 figure range, but also remember it's Canadian dollars so your location may affect the costs, too.

[@yakmilk4lyfe]

How much cooling did you see during the summer?

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Great question! I would say a few degrees, but it's hard to track because it gets so hot we wouldn't keep it off long enough to measure... often our thermometer would top 50 degrees celcius and shut off during the hottest days.

[@JohnGuest45]

@@waykeeperfarmandnerdery For effective cooling you need to put the entire greenhouse air volume underground at least 20x per hour. Diminishing returns begin at around 45x per hour. Its not easy to achieve this in a massive greenhouse due to fan power limitations. I designed my system to handle upto 60x per hour to do these kind of tests.

[@robindevellen7038]

Clay doesn’t let the heat flow through it. Use stone.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

That's a really great point - we did backfill with sand instead of clay... but now that I'm hearing about the stone, I think that would have been way better.

[@Erik-so2pm]

Climate battery ? Certainly not a "battery". However it seems a good way to stabilise temperature in your greenhouse 👌

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Yes, it can also be called geothermal greenhouse as well :)

[@futureproof.health]

ok. the problem with all these climate batteries is coming clear. Air is a terrible medium to conduct heat, the excavation is really outside the scope. there is a better way!! to move heat than this.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

I'm here to learn as much as I am to share our experiments, so if you have any ideas I'm all ears! :)

[@TonySGuo]

Hydronic systems, water provide greater transference, pex/poly tubing less likely to clog or get damaged from roots

[@JohnGuest45]

@@TonySGuo Water has a higher specific heat capacity compared to soil but it doesn`t offer any of the advantages you gain by using soil as mass and air as the transport medium.

[@zakbrinkhoff324]

Hot air intake tube needs to be high cold air intake tube needs to be low.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

This is really helpful! The way we set things up, we only have "one direction" so the intake is high and the output is low.

[@JohnGuest45]

@@waykeeperfarmandnerdery A well designed system should mix the air. If you take temperature readings between the floor and the highest part of the roof, you may find the highest temperature is not at the apex but quite a lot lower.

[@PeacefulCountryLife]

Climate Battery? a what?

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

I didn't coin the term ;)

[@navyforeveryoungjean-phili5940]

This is too damn much

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Thanks for taking the time to comment!

[@djames2377]

Why make a video when you havent even tried the system for a year or 2

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Hello hello! You can see the update of our first winter here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rmnOm2Ogj7GnpK8 And the update from spring here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aoqnnZqfg9h7oZI This video is meant to be an overview of how we set up the system - I'll keep posting updates as we learn more, make updates, and keep growing amazing food for our family! :)

[@user713Blvd]

Good idea but it isn't DIY for regular home owner. This require larger investment and big machinery for digging.

[@waykeeperfarmandnerdery]

Completely agreed!