Cob: cob/ thermalMass

[Bill&Julie]

Greetings and Kudos to one and all.........
    This maybe obvious to most, and to those that see something that I am
missing, please fill me in.
If a person were to think of Thermal Mass as a Fly Wheel, it may help in the
choice of  how much
and what kind. It would seem that the average target tempurature INSIDE
should be very close to
the average OF the AVERAGE extreems OUTSIDE. In other words, if the target
temperature
INSIDE is 70 F, then for every hour that it gets to 90F during the day it
should get to 50F at night.

With that said, that does preclude opening drapes of large sun facing
windows, and closing heavey
insulated drapes when heat is not coming through the windows. By doing this,
one can shift the
Inside Target temperature by weighting the transfer of energy.

Getting back to the Fly Wheel analogy.  The bigger the fly wheel (thickness
of cob) the more power
it will take to increase its speed ( btu's to heat it up). The bigger fly
wheel (thicker wall) will retain
more of the speed (heat) over a longer length of time. Now here is the rub
as I see it, If you were to
build in a place that the average winter 24 hr daily OUTSIDE temperature was
20 F
(extreams are for clarity) then you would have to add energy ( Heat ) day
and night to keep up.

Here is also a point to ponder: Heat is not the absence of cold, but cold is
the absence of heat.
And This is where we need insulation, not just thermal mass. To keep heat in
where the averages
are colder than our target. And to keep heat out where the averages are
hotter than our target.

bill
Ps  I keep kicking the bee hive... and this is fun?????? ouch   ,,,  ouch
,,,