The Rural Voice, 1978-07, Page 12summer the problem is trying to keep the fiberglass roof as cool
as possible.
The Hemingways are making some modifications on the barn
this year for heat storage. The highest recorded temperature
they had was 30 degrees celsius when the outside temperature
was zero.
The Hemingways would like to have an optimum temperature
of 10 degrees celsius for the incoming air into the various rooms
the pigs are in because that's what the exhaust fans are geared
for. When the temperature is higher than that the fans speed up
so that heat is lost and its waste energy.
Store Heat
Now they're going to try and store heat, as Mr. Hemingway
says, "the oldest form of heating known to man". They are
going to fill a pit with rocks and conduct the air from the solar
panels through this pit. There are some elaborate ways of storing
heat, "but once you get right down to the cost and life of
materials, the rocks are about the easiest and the cheapest", Mr.
Hemingway says.
The solar heated barn is the farrowing grower barn which
holds about 800 hogs. This is the part of the operation that is the
most heat intensive.
Try it
"I thought if there was any saving in energy to be had that was
the barn to try it," Mr. Hemingway said.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food is going to be
monitoring Mr. Hemingway's solar barn. The equipment for
monitoring is supposed to be coming this summer so they'll have
a full season of monitoring by next winter. The monitoring is to
determine the heat collecting efficiency of the solar panels.
Ontario Hydro has installed separate monitoring devices in the
barn so that Mr. Hemingway can monitor individually heat that's
going into the different rooms in the barn. So , at the end of the
year, he should be able to have the figures in front of him and
project what the panels have actually saved him in energy costs.
The supplementary heat is all electric with two space heaters
in the hallways and the farrowing rooms electrically heated in
the floor.
Lower
With the air coming into the barn, the humidity is a lot lower
than it is outside because the air circulation is a little higher in
the barn plus it's a drier heat. Regardless of the temperature
outside they're getting the same heat inside the barn. Mr.
Hemingway said.
"We were getting as much heat in January as in March. The
heat remained constant as long as the sun was out", Mr.
Hemingway said.
A solar panelled roof must be built facing south because this is
where you're getting your maximum sun according to Donna
Hazelden, public relations co-ordinator, Energy Conservation
Centre in Lucknow.
If the roof is a little off due south it will have very little
difference in the effect of the roof, according to Mr. Hemingway.
In January the heat started about 11:30 a.m. and ended about
2:30 p.m. and in March it started about 10 a.m. and ended at
3:30 p.m. so that as the days got longer there was a little more
heat.
The Hemingways went over the amount required to insulate
when they built the barn. They used 8 -inch Durisol blocks witt
two inches of sprayed urethane giving an R value of 20. There
was 10 inches of mineral put in the ceiling with an R value of 30.
The higher the R value the more insulation there is.
No Statistics
Ron Fleming, agricultural engineer with the Ontario Ministry
of Agriculture and Food in Cli nton said they don't have any
statistics yet to see if an operation such as Mr. Hemingway's is
commercially viable.
Mr. Fleming said that with the amount of insulation Mr.
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