The AeroSolar Deck House is an innovative accessible zero-carbon household. In most locations it can be energy positive and can even provide energy for personal transport using plug-in hybrid or electric vehicles.

The concept is a super-passive solar house that has both super-insulation and passive solar design to create a comfortable internal environment. It maximises and stores passive solar gain and uses internal gains and heat recovery and earth tempered ventilation air.

Traditionally, the passive solar approach relies on a masonry structure, requiring lengthy construction and very thick walls if built to super-insulated performance standards. This house is based on an engineered design lightweight assembly approach, similar to the design of a multi-legged table.

The structural component of the ‘table post and beam’ is either recycled or demountable steel or engineered wood such as Glulam or LVL or Accoya materials. Each ‘table leg’ can be extended to become a stilt to accommodate uneven sites or raise the living area, or where there are concerns about flood risk. Each ‘table leg’ is supported on a pad foundation or helical pile foundation.

The super-insulated walls and floors have a U value of 0.1W/m2 (0.09W/m2 in the roof) which is achieved by combining conventional insulation materials with a novel fire-resistant insulation system based on nano-voids. The house can be clad in a variety of materials including render, and wood panelling.

The triple-glazed super-windows have low E coatings, together with highly-insulated frames and spacers to achieve U values of 0.7W/m2 and comply with Passiv-Haus standard. At night, nano-void hyper-insulating shutters reduce U values further.

To achieve super-passive solar performance requires a means of storing the solar and other thermal gains inside the insulated envelope. In the case of the AeroSolar Deck House, thermal mass is provided by a paved floor, with high density panelling of external walls, partitions and ceilings and the use of latent heat storage materials.

Ground floor living accommodation is wrapped around a two storey solar atrium space, which also gives access to the upper level roof gardens and upper level solar atrium space. The upper level of the solar atrium provides compartmented insulated storage space for rainwater, cold water and hot water.

The southerly slope of the solar atrium is clad with a poly-generating semi-transparent CHPV+TIM roof to generate electricity (plus active and passive solar heating and solar hot water). To minimise the risks of overheating in summer, the CHPV roof provides active and passive ventilation, and passive cooling as well as daylighting and shading. Depending on cell type, the CHPV array would be rated at 3-3.5kWp, and would be expected to yield around 2300-2700kWh/year electricity. On the apex of the atrium roof there is a wind and solar variant of the Aeolian roof building-augmented wind energy system. The combined annual output of the photovoltaic and wind turbines should be comparable to the annual UK average household electricity demand.

The design of the house can provide tight densities, configured as terraces, linked dwellings, in a compact courtyard arrangement or staggered street form. It can be built as one-bedroom units that can be added to and configured as two to three storey units by stacking.

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