[Shiraz (Ray)]

Hi

Had a query re heat transfer into the pod and if it had any insulation. It doesn't have insulation and I had painted the dome white on the assumption that this would be needed to reduce solar heating.

To test this, I scraped one of the dome sectors back to the original light grey LLDPE plastic so that I could actually measure how effective white paint is cf the original finish.

I laid the unpainted dome sector (outer side up) alongside a white painted sector on the same region of lawn and let them soak in the sun for an hour or so. The air temperature was 23C with a light breeze and the lawn grass under the dome sectors settled at about 26C.

The unpainted dome sector heated up to an astonishing 51C on the outside and 34C on the underside (8C above the ambient grass) - quite a lot of solar heat was absorbed and transferred through the original dome material.

The white painted sector hardly absorbed any solar heat, only reaching a mild 31C on the outside and staying at ~26C on the underside - the same temp as the grass.

So the white paint is a very effective insulator against solar heating, suggesting that equipment in the painted dome should stay close to ambient temps in summer. Not tested, but the exterior of the bays and walls would probably also need to be painted for best results.

Cheers Ray