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concepts · updated 2026-08-01

Andy Shack

confidence: medium volatility: cold verified: 2026-08-01fresh

Andy Shack is a Zomeworks test building (in use by 1988, monitored 2000-2002) using an 8-inch PVC pipe water-storage bank (250 gallons) connected to a 65 sq ft roof-mounted copper radiator -- a direct experimental precedent for the Double Play thermosiphon, instrumented the same way Stickney and Baer later validated Cool Cell.

A Zomeworks test/demonstration building in the Zomeworks yard, Albuquerque, listed in Baer’s 2009 AIA passive solar slideshow as a “test building, Zomeworks yard, Albuquerque, NM (1988–present); heated and cooled by unglazed Skymats™.” Temperature-monitoring records from 2000 and 2002 document its thermal storage system directly.

The system

Per the Kayatekin retrospective (ICON, 2025), Baer built Andy Shack in 1988 as a 10 ft × 10 ft cabin on the Zomeworks grounds: a sub-ceiling array of water-filled 8” PVC pipes connected to a rooftop radiator of black pig mats, with aluminium louvers below the array to control heat transfer — effectively a hybrid of Harold Hay’s Skytherm and Baer’s stock-pond-melter thermosiphon.

The 2000 monitoring records document the storage bank as 7’ lengths × 10 pipes of 8” PVC, roughly 250 gallons total, paired with 65 sq ft of copper radiator space mounted on the roof and kept dry. Radiators were run continuously overnight and kept dry. Temperature was logged at the middle of the storage pipe and 3 feet from the floor across monitoring runs from June 12–15, 2000 (shack water vs. shack air vs. ambient) and June 27–July 1, 2002 (shack, storage pipe, and ambient alongside a white comparison plate).

Why it matters for this archive

Andy Shack is a small-scale, real, monitored precursor to the Double Play thermosiphon system — a water-storage bank plus roof radiator, logged with temperature charts rather than just described. It sits in the same experimental lineage as the Stickney/Baer heated-vs-unheated-plates test and is directly relevant precedent for the miniature Double Play cat-shelter experiment: a documented, monitored, unglazed-radiator thermosiphon test building already exists in this archive at a genuinely small scale.

Unknown

“Andy” is not otherwise identified in the archive — likely a Zomeworks staff member or the building’s namesake/location, but no full name or role is documented.

See also