Thermal III — Thermal Mass & Passive Cooling
Place thermal mass so it works, size and detail a Pangea cooling tube, and lay out the complete summer air path from tube inlet to skylight exhaust — then explain to a client or an inspector how the building cools itself with no machine and no power.
What you'll be able to do
- Place and size thermal mass through a whole building
- Specify and install a Pangea cooling tube, slope and perforations included
- Lay out a complete summer air path that actually moves air
- Operate the system seasonally and teach an occupant to
Syllabus
5 parts · 19 lessons · 162 quiz questions · ≈5.8 hours of reading · sign in to open lessons
Part A THERMAL MASS
- 1 How Thermal Mass Works 15 min · 7 q
- 2 Mass Properties of Materials 15 min · 7 q
- 3 Locating Thermal Mass 16 min · 8 q
- 4 Sizing — and Why Pangea Does Not Use a Ratio 19 min · 9 q
- 5 Earth Sheltering and the Deep-Earth Sink 18 min · 8 q
Part B THE COOLING PROBLEM
- 6 Heat Avoidance Comes First 16 min · 8 q
- 7 The Four Ways Heat Leaves 17 min · 9 q
Part C THE FOUR SYSTEMS
- 8 Comfort Ventilation 15 min · 8 q
- 9 Night Flush Cooling 15 min · 8 q
- 10 Radiant Cooling 16 min · 8 q
- 11 Evaporative Cooling — and Why Pangea Does Not Use It 18 min · 9 q
- 12 Earth Cooling — the Principle 18 min · 9 q
Part D THE PANGEA COOLING SYSTEM
- 13 The Cooling Tube — Specification 20 min · 9 q
- 14 How the Cooling Tube Actually Works 28 min · 10 q
- 15 The Greenhouse, the Skylights and the Stack 21 min · 10 q
- 16 Sizing, Balance and What Goes Wrong 22 min · 11 q
Part E INTEGRATION
- 17 Designing the Whole Cooling System 15 min · 8 q
- 18 Operation and the Occupant 16 min · 8 q
- 19 Summer Resilience 17 min · 8 q
Ref Appendices
- A1 Thermal Mass Properties
- A2 Pangea Cooling Tube Specification
- A3 The Summer Air Path
- A4 Seasonal Operation — Occupant Card
Prerequisites
Course 5 (Thermal I) and Course 6 (Thermal II). Completes the thermal sequence.
About this course
Course competency
On completing this course you can specify and place thermal mass throughout a building, size and detail a Pangea cooling tube, lay out the complete summer air path from tube inlet to skylight exhaust, explain to a client or an inspector how a building cools itself with no machine and no power, and operate the system through a year.
Why this course exists
Courses 5 and 6 built a building that catches the winter sun and holds onto it. Done alone, that building is a liability in August.
This course is the other half of the year, and it is the half that is getting harder. Globally, cooling demand is rising faster than heating demand (Course 5, Lesson 3.5), and a heat wave with a grid failure is more dangerous than a cold snap with one.
It is also the half where the Pangea system is most distinctive. Passive solar heating is well documented everywhere. A building that cools itself through perforated aluminium culverts buried in an earth berm, driven by nothing but the sun on a greenhouse roof, is not.
Note for students: this course contains the most Pangea-specific technical content in the curriculum. The thermal mass principles are general building science. The cooling system in Part D is a particular set of dimensions and details refined over decades of building in the high desert, and the numbers in it are Pangea's.
The two halves of the battery
Course 5 established that thermal mass is a battery for temperature — storing the sun's warmth in winter and the earth's coolness in summer.
This course is where the second half gets built out. The same mass, the same walls, the same floor. What changes is what charges them and when you let the heat out.
Course structure
| Part | Lessons | Subject |
|---|---|---|
| A | 1–5 | Thermal mass: mechanism, materials, placement, sizing, earth sheltering |
| B | 6–7 | The cooling problem: avoidance first, then removal |
| C | 8–12 | The four passive cooling systems |
| D | 13–16 | The Pangea cooling system — tubes, skylights, and the air path |
| E | 17–19 | Integration, operation and summer resilience |
| — | A1–A4 | Appendices: mass properties, tube specification, air path, seasonal operation |
The public page for this course has the same syllabus without your progress on it - that is the one to send to somebody else.