EcoboxEcco the Ecobox of Madrid, an office building from an experimental economic construction ...
materials? Poor: stone, precast concrete, metal and birch wood. The result? Pleasant. The cost? Low. The savings? High, a record.
That is, how to build, spending 1,200 euro per square meter (including VAT and furniture), an office building that consumes less power than an apartment with air conditioning. More precisely, it saves 70 percent energy compared to an office building from traditional cost equal to or more.
Some of the techniques used are also good for your chalet by the sea or mountains. Not all. But the first lesson is that dell'Ecobox of Madrid, to cut the energy bill and begin to alleviate the effect greenhouse, do not need a scientific or technological revolution. "From this point of view - says Gaetano Fasano, project manager for Enea" The smart home "- are one of the best examples. They put together several successful principles and technologies." Old technologies, in some cases very old and new, at your fingertips. And of all. To see them in action, you must go to Alcobendas, one of the suburbs that are growing at an explosive rate, around Madrid. On the streets, are lined up the headquarters of such giants as Toyota, Daimler-Chrysler, BP, large banks such as Ing
"The Look" he says, pointing out the window, Alfredo Vegara, President of Fundación Metropoli, a foundation that studies in particular bioclimatic architecture, which is home to the Ecobox - showcase: "Each building has cost more than this and even more costs to live within." To understand why, you have to start from simple things: the sun, for example. "Take the building of Bp. In the name of ecology, British Petroleum for a time, now called Beyond Petroleum, as well as oil. Then they build a home with a large skylight on the roof. Summer is a furnace. O, next door, the parking lot of Mercedes. They have used normal roofs, dome, industrial production. The result is that the machines for 60 percent of the time they are exposed to the sun. "
The parking lot of the foundation roofs facing south, tilted 30 degrees to shield the rays of the sun. And the light says Angel de Diego, the architect who designed the Ecobox, special attention has been paid. The windows (vertical) on the roof, which act as a skylight, is shielded from shelters: in the winter when the sun is low, the rays come directly, in the summer when it is higher, no. The windows on the outside walls are shielded by long blades steerable.
It 's more or less, what did our grandparents with the shutters. We have them replaced with the blinds (or all up or all down, there is no middle way) or, even worse, with internal blinds. But there difference between a glass that is red hot in the sun and transmits (blind or not) and heat in a glass that remains in the shade.
The same principle, bigger, apply to exterior walls. Slabs of stone, fastened on an insulator and secured to a part of cement. Then, the traditional jacket and another concrete wall. The trick is that the gap, instead of being empty, is filled with a material with high thermal inertia, which transmits, ie, slowly, the heat from outside to inside (or vice versa). It seems complicated stuff, but the material with high thermal inertia is trivial, vulgar gravel. "We did not invent anything - he smiles de Diego - they did the ancient Romans." More precisely, the entire building is surrounded by gravel, because the high thermal inertia is also important up and down. Especially below, where it is clear that inaction is not only a term liabilities.
The interior of the building is an alternation of dull gray cement, bright gray and cold of the profiling of metal, warm beige and reddish birch. But on the panels below, there are close to the floor vents. "In summer, during the night - said de Diego - when the outdoor temperature is at least five degrees lower than internal, brought into use vacuum cleaners. The cool air is directed through the gravel under the building, where it cools further and then, through grids on the panel, back inside the building. The result is that the office, we left the night before at 25 degrees, we find him the next morning at 14 '. It is a system, admits Vegara, which works only with the dry climate of Madrid. "In Barcelona, \u200b\u200bwhere the humidity is high, condensation would create too many problems. "But in the Ecobox, again, the mornings in the summer by 14 degrees instead of 25, is a great advantage. All the more so since, nell'Ecobox, the 'there is no air conditioning.
sun exposure, insulation, ventilation, calculates de Diego, providing a 20-25 percent energy savings dell'Ecobox, compared to a traditional building. Another 10 percent is given the automation of various systems of control of shielding, ventilation, heating and cooling. But here, in heating and cooling, which is the 40 percent savings compared to a building with electrical conditions. The key is 72 square meters of solar panels placed at the roof. It is not the photovoltaic panels that produce electricity. The
Ecobox has on the front ("We had offered to operate the elevator - explains de Diego - then we discovered that, with incentives, we should sell the energy, rather than using it"). But the major panels, those on the roof are solar thermal, a technology less sophisticated and more experienced, as well as more economical. Those who, in substance, heat the water. It is collected in two tanks of 3000 liters, an idea that anything unusual for those who still remember, in Rome, before its premises were converted into mass in penthouse, drinking water tanks on the roof. From there, winter, water is pumped at 45 degrees in the coils that run inside the concrete floors and from there back to warm the environment. And in summer? It works in reverse. The water heated by the panels goes into what is called an absorption machine. Where, through a chemical process triggered by lithium bromide, cools up to ten degrees. And from the coils on the floor (which now serve as a ceilings) to cool down the building.
's not a total and final answer. Not all months are equal: in January and August, for example, the solar system is able to cover less than one third of the application of heat, respectively, and cold, and building a gas boiler has to intervene to bridge the gap. But the average savings over a year, including insulation and solar system is 70 percent, compared to a building air conditioning. Mean was calculated, 104 000 kilowatts of energy produced without fossil fuels. And then, 457 tons of carbon dioxide, less, spit into the atmosphere. Equivalent to keep still in the garage for a year, 113 cars. Or to plant 50 hectares of forest: between glass and concrete buildings in Alcobendas, including the headquarters of Toyota and that of Bp. Maurizio Ricci
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