CORE house is 48’ by 24’ with six 40’ long raised beds inside. Similar to the Seed Start House, the CORE house has an energy transfer system called a climate battery. This necessitates the raised beds because we don’t want to grow directly into the crushed rock floor. The CORE house’s name is derived from a local non-profit (Community Office for Resource Efficiency) that granted ACES funding to build this passively heated house.
The end walls and the north wall of the CORE house are insulated, while the south wall and entire roof have double-layered 6 milimeter greenhouse plastic. The space between the layers of plastic is inflated with a blower fan. This creates a pocket of insulation, allowing for an increase of 3-4 degrees of nighttime warmth. The large area for solar gain helps the house maximize heat energy on sunny days. The plastic of the south-facing wall rolls up for venting, and there are French doors on the east and west end walls.
Due to the Climate Battery, we are able to plant summer-loving crops in mid-April, two months before we otherwise could summer crops outside in Basalt, CO. We also use CORE house to grow a variety of winter vegetables utilizing the entirety of the growing year.
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