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This $300 Tunnel Keeps Any Home 55°F Forever — The Amish System the Cooling Industry Made Illegal — Transcript

by Eli Yoder Secrets · 2,791 words · 470 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00You're standing at the mouth of a tunnel
0:01that runs underneath an Amish farmhouse
0:03in Holmes County, Ohio. No wires,
0:05>> [music]
0:06>> no compressor, no thermostat, and the
0:09air coming out of it is 55°
0:12in the middle of August. This $300
0:14system cools any home to 55° using
0:17nothing but the earth beneath your feet
0:19>> [music]
0:19>> and a fan that draws less power than a
0:21light bulb. The Amish have been building
0:24it for 200 years. The cooling industry
0:27has known about it since 1930, and in
0:301930, they made sure you would never
0:33find out.
0:34After the last video, many of you asked
0:36the same thing, "What about summer? What
0:39about keeping a home cool?" So, I went
0:41back to Holmes County,
0:43and what I found underneath those farms
0:45is the same physics the Persians used to
0:47store ice through 120° desert summers
0:492,400 years ago. And yes, this works
0:52even if your
0:53house was built 50 years ago.
0:56>> [clears throat]
0:56>> Here's the number that changes
0:57everything. At 6 ft below the surface,
1:00the ground temperature locks in and
1:02stays constant all year.
1:04Summer, winter, doesn't matter what's
1:06happening above. Oak Ridge National
1:08Laboratory, that's the Department of
1:09Energy's own research facility, measured
1:12it city by city.
1:13In Chicago, the ground sits at 55°
1:17year-round.
1:18In Atlanta, 62. Denver, 58. Phoenix, 67.
1:25Minneapolis, 52.
1:28And in Holmes County, Ohio, right where
1:31those Amish farms sit, the soil
1:33temperature stays between 54°
1:36every single day of every single year.
1:38It never changes.
1:40Now, think about that for a second.
1:43Your air conditioner works by
1:44compressing chemical refrigerant,
1:46forcing it through coils, blowing air
1:48across those coils, and dumping the heat
1:50outside.
1:52It pulls maybe three and a half units of
1:54cooling for every unit of electricity it
1:56consumes. Engineers call that a
1:58coefficient of performance of about 3.5.
2:01An earth tube, a simple buried pipe that
2:03lets air travel through cool ground, was
2:05measured across 47 installations
2:07worldwide with a coefficient of
2:09performance of 28.7.
2:1228 versus three. That gap represents
2:14billions of dollars in equipment,
2:16refrigerant, electricity, and service
2:18contracts every year.
2:20And that's why you've never heard of
2:21this. The physics behind it is so
2:23simple, it almost sounds too good. Soil
2:26is heavy, between 100 and 125 lb per
2:29cubic foot. Moving that mass even 1°
2:32takes enormous energy, 20 [music] to 30
2:35BTUs per cubic foot. When summer heat
2:38bakes the surface, it starts sinking
2:40into the earth, but it moves slowly. Six
2:43to eight weeks to penetrate just 6 ft.
2:45By the time it arrives, the season is
2:47already changed. The earth can't absorb
2:49the heat fast enough to warm up. It
2:51stays cool. It is the largest thermal
2:53battery on the planet,
2:55and it's sitting underneath every home
2:57in America right now doing absolutely
2:59nothing because nobody told you it was
3:01there. The Amish didn't read about this
3:03in a textbook. They figured it out the
3:06way they figure out everything, by
3:07paying attention to what the earth was
3:09already doing and then building around
3:11it. Every farm in Holmes County has a
3:14root cellar dug 10 ft deep. No
3:17insulation, no mechanical cooling. The
3:20soil keeps it between 32° year-round.
3:23That's not tradition. That is applied
3:26physics refined over two centuries. Then
3:29there are the springhouses.
3:31These are small buildings constructed
3:33directly over natural springs, where
3:35groundwater flows at 54°
3:38constant. The water moves under the
3:39floor.
3:41The building stays between 50° all
3:43summer. The Amish in Lancaster County
3:45and Holmes County use them to keep dairy
3:48and produce fresh without a single watt
3:50of electricity. I stood inside one on a
3:53day when it was 91° outside. Inside that
3:56springhouse, I could see my breath. But
3:58the system that matters most for this
4:00video is what the Amish call the breath
4:02of the floor.
4:03Clay pipes buried under the foundations
4:06of their farmhouses. Air enters from
4:08outside, travels underground through
4:10those pipes, and rises through the
4:12floorboards cooled by the earth.
4:15The USDA documented this system in a
4:17manual published in 1903, specifically
4:20noting clay pipe installations in Holmes
4:22County, Ohio. That document is over 120
4:25years old. The system it describes is
4:28still running under Amish homes today.
4:30And here's where it gets interesting.
4:32The Amish who settled Ohio and
4:33Pennsylvania came from Germany and
4:36Switzerland. Those same two countries
4:38now lead the world in modern earth tube
4:40engineering. Germany has 847 monitored
4:45residential earth tube installations
4:46tracked by the Passive House Institute
4:49in Darmstadt since 2005.
4:52Austria requires thermal labyrinth
4:54analysis for any building over 1,000 sq
4:56m.
4:57Switzerland has a 15-year longitudinal
4:59study from ETH Zurich, one of the most
5:01respected engineering schools on the
5:03planet, showing zero degradation in
5:05system performance over the entire
5:07monitoring period. Zero. The knowledge
5:10the Amish carried from Europe 200 years
5:12ago is the same knowledge Europe
5:13rediscovered with modern engineering.
5:15The circle closed, but America never got
5:18the memo because someone made sure it
5:20didn't. In 1902, a man named Willis
5:24Carrier invented mechanical air
5:26conditioning in a printing plant in
5:27Brooklyn. His problem wasn't heat. It
5:30was humidity ruining the paper. The
5:33machine was never designed for human
5:35comfort. [music]
5:36But by the 1920s, Carrier Corporation
5:38launched a campaign called Weather Maker
5:40that repositioned air conditioning as
5:42the symbol of American progress. [music]
5:45Their marketing materials, and I've read
5:46them explicitly, labeled passive cooling
5:48techniques as primitive and unsanitary.
5:51Then in 1930, a Carrier Engineering
5:54Corporation manual included one sentence
5:56that buried 5,000 years of proven
5:58engineering.
5:59It read, "Earth contact cooling is
6:02suitable only for cellars and food
6:04storage." [music]
6:04One line, one corporate manual, and an
6:07entire field of knowledge disappeared
6:09from American construction. It wasn't an
6:11accident. In 1927, the first model
6:14mechanical codes were drafted [music]
6:16with heavy participation from HVAC
6:17industry representatives. Passive
6:19alternatives weren't banned, they simply
6:21didn't exist in the document. The people
6:24writing the rules were the same people
6:25selling compressors. After World War II,
6:28the construction boom standardized
6:29mechanical cooling as the only
6:31acceptable approach.
6:33Passive cooling vanished from
6:35architecture schools. By 1980, fewer
6:38than 3% of American architecture
6:39programs taught any passive cooling
6:41strategy at all. An entire generation of
6:44architects, engineers, contractors, and
6:47building inspectors was trained in a
6:48world where earth tubes didn't exist.
6:51Not because they failed, because they
6:52weren't profitable. The numbers make the
6:55motive obvious.
6:57The Air Conditioning, Heating, and
6:59Refrigeration Institute spent $47.3
7:02million
7:03on political activities in 2022 alone.
7:07The residential cooling market in
7:08America is worth $29 billion a year. The
7:11average lifetime value of a single
7:13residential HVAC customer is over
7:16$15,000.
7:18Every earth tube installed is an air
7:20conditioner that never gets sold, a
7:21compressor that never gets replaced, a
7:24refrigerant charge that never gets
7:25refilled, a service contract that never
7:28gets signed. In 2019,
7:30ASHRAE Technical Committee 6.8, the
7:33committee responsible for evaluating
7:35exactly these kinds of systems, rejected
7:37a proposal to create a performance
7:39pathway for [music] earth tubes.
7:41Their stated reason was insufficient
7:43domestic performance data. They said
7:45this while sitting on three decades of
7:47European documentation covering 847
7:49monitored installations.
7:51When researchers analyzed who sat on
7:53that committee, 67% were representatives
7:56of HVAC manufacturers. The foxes wrote
7:59the rules for the hen house,
8:01and the hens never knew. Two years
8:03later, in 2021, the Building Officials
8:06Association of Florida formally opposed
8:08an amendment that would have recognized
8:10passive cooling in the state building
8:12code. Their public concern was
8:14inspection complexity. But every earth
8:17tube that gets approved in Florida is a
8:19central air unit that never gets
8:21installed in a state where cooling bills
8:23run $400 a month for six months of the
8:25year.
8:26You do that math. The International
8:28Residential Code Section M1601 requires
8:32all duct systems to be constructed of
8:34materials with a maximum flame spread
8:36index of 200. There's no provision for
8:38earth contact air handling. The code
8:41assumes ducts exist inside buildings. A
8:43system that buries pipes in the ground
8:45doesn't fit the template. Therefore, it
8:46can't be approved. Not because it fails,
8:49because the form doesn't have a box for
8:51it. Meanwhile, the Cambridge Public
8:54Library in Massachusetts has 42 earth
8:56tubes buried beneath it. The result is
8:5851 to 56% less total energy use compared
9:01to a standard building. The Earth
9:03Rangers Centre in Toronto runs nine
9:05concrete tubes, each about 65 ft long,
9:08buried 10 ft deep. In winter, it warms
9:10incoming air by 36°.
9:13In summer, it cools it by 18. It earned
9:15LEED Platinum certification. The
9:17Allgemeine Krankenhaus Hospital in
9:19Vienna has been cooling critical care
9:21units with earth tubes since 1994.
9:2330 years of continuous operation.
9:26Maintenance [music] required every five
9:27to seven years. Operating costs a
9:30fraction of conventional cooling. These
9:32aren't experiments, they're proven
9:34infrastructure.
9:35But your building inspector has never
9:37heard of them because his licensing exam
9:40never mentioned them. Now, if you
9:42already own a house and you're thinking
9:44this only applies to people building
9:45from scratch, stay with me because this
9:47next part is specifically for you. You
9:49don't need to tear up your foundation.
9:52You don't need to rip out your existing
9:53system. You need a yard, even a side
9:56yard, even a strip of land the width of
9:58a car along a fence line.
10:00Here's what the system looks like for an
10:01existing home. You dig a trench 6 ft
10:04deep along whatever stretch of land you
10:05have. Could be your backyard, could be
10:08along the property line. You lay smooth
10:10wall HDPE or PVC pipe 6 to 8 in in
10:13diameter in a run of 100 to 200 ft.
10:16Smooth wall is not optional. Corrugated
10:18pipe traps condensation and breeds mold.
10:21You lay the pipe on a bed of sand for
10:23maximum thermal [music] contact. You
10:25slope it at a 2% grade toward a drain
10:27point so any moisture that condenses
10:29inside flows out and never pools.
10:31[music]
10:32One end connects to an intake above
10:33ground with a screen.
10:35The other end connects to your house
10:37through a basement wall or crawl space
10:39with a MERV 13 filter and an inline fan
10:42drawing 50 to 80 W.
10:43What comes out the other end is air that
10:45has traveled 100 to 200 ft through Earth
10:49locked at 55° on a 95° day. That air
10:53exits between 65 and 75°. No compressor,
10:57no refrigerant, [music]
10:58no chemical process, just physics. And
11:01that air isn't just cooler, it's drier.
11:03The condensation on the pipe walls
11:05captures moisture and airborne
11:07particles.
11:08>> [music]
11:08>> Humidity drops from 80% to under 50. The
11:10materials cost roughly $300. The fan
11:13runs on what a single light bulb uses
11:15and the [music] pipe lasts 50 to 100
11:17years.
11:18Your central air unit lasts 15 to 25
11:21before it ends up in a landfill. Before
11:23I [music] show you the Tennessee system,
11:25the one that costs nothing to run and
11:26requires zero permits, everything I have
11:28covered across
11:30this channel is now in one place. The
11:33stove, the wall, the water, this. It is
11:38called the Amish home system. Link in
11:41the description, but stay here.
11:44Because what this man built in his
11:45backyard for $400 is the part nobody is
11:48talking about. Now, here's the honesty.
11:50You won't hear from anyone selling you
11:52something
11:53in dry and continental climates, Ohio,
11:56Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin,
11:59Colorado, Texas, Hill Country, Kansas.
12:02This system works beautifully with
12:03minimal fuss.
12:05That covers most of where this audience
12:06lives. In high humidity southern
12:08climates like coastal Florida, the
12:10condensation inside the tube becomes a
12:12real challenge. The system still cools
12:14the air, but managing that moisture
12:17takes more attention.
12:19For those areas, there's a smarter
12:21variant. Instead of running air through
12:23the buried pipe, you run a closed loop
12:25of water mixed with glycol, the same
12:27antifreeze in your car radiator.
12:29The liquid circulates through the buried
12:31loop, picks up the Earth's constant
12:33temperature, then passes through a heat
12:34exchanger inside your house. Cool air
12:37comes out. No air ever touches the
12:39buried pipe. No condensation, no mold
12:42risk, no radon concern. And here's what
12:45makes this version bulletproof from a
12:46code perspective.
12:47>> [music]
12:47>> It uses standard plumbing fittings.
12:51It qualifies under existing plumbing
12:53provisions in every state. No special
12:55permit, no confused inspector, no HVAC
12:59code that doesn't have a box for it. But
13:01the technique I promised you, the one I
13:02found that nobody is talking about, came
13:04from a man in rural Tennessee.
13:07And this is the part that made me drive
13:084 hours to see it for myself. This man
13:11lives in a 1,500 sq ft house built in
13:13the 1970s. Standard construction,
13:16nothing special.
13:17His heating and cooling bill used to run
13:19about $240 a month in summer and almost
13:22the same in winter. 3 years ago, he
13:24built a closed loop glycol system, but
13:27he didn't put it under his house. He put
13:29it under his workshop. His workshop sits
13:3112 ft from his back door.
13:33He trenched a 6 ft deep loop under the
13:35workshop floor, ran the glycol lines
13:38through the wall of his house, and
13:39connected them to a simple fan coil unit
13:42he bought online for $80.
13:44In summer, the system pulls heat out of
13:46his house and dumps it into 55° Earth.
13:49In winter, it pulls 55° warmth from the
13:52Earth and pushes it in. One system,
13:55two functions, 12 months of comfort. His
13:58heating and cooling bill since
13:59installation, zero. He called it two for
14:01the price of one. The system cost him
14:03under $400 in materials.
14:06He dug the trench himself over two
14:08weekends. The glycol loop uses a small
14:10circulator pump drawing 40 W.
14:13The fan coil unit sits in a closet. No
14:15ductwork modification.
14:17No permits required because it's a
14:19plumbing loop, not an HVAC system. And
14:22here's the detail that matters. He
14:23didn't touch his existing furnace or air
14:24conditioner. They're still there,
14:27still connected. He just never turns
14:29them on. [music] If his Earth loop ever
14:31needed maintenance, he could switch back
14:33in 5 minutes. There's no risk. There's
14:35no commitment.
14:36There's just a man who stopped paying
14:38$240 a month because he understood what
14:41the dirt under his workshop was already
14:43doing for free. That's the knowledge
14:45that existed for 5,000 years.
14:48The Persians built ice houses in the
14:49desert. The Romans engineered cooling
14:51channels under their villas. The Koreans
14:53ran air passages under floors for 3,000
14:56years.
14:57Native Americans in the Southwest built
14:59semi-subterranean homes for eight
15:01millennia. Every civilization that
15:03mastered extreme climate arrived at the
15:05same answer independently. The Earth
15:07stores temperature. The pipe is just the
15:09path. The Amish never forgot. They
15:12carried it from Switzerland and Germany
15:14to Pennsylvania and Ohio 200 years ago
15:16and kept building it because it worked
15:18and because they never needed anyone's
15:20permission to do what made sense.
15:22In 1930, one sentence in one corporate
15:25manual decided you would never learn
15:27this. In 2019, a committee with 67%
15:31industry representation made sure it
15:33stayed buried. In 2021,
15:36Florida officials blocked it from the
15:37building code to protect an industry
15:39worth $29 billion a year, but the ground
15:42beneath your house doesn't care about
15:43committees or codes or quarterly
15:45earnings. It sits at 55°.
15:48It has always sat at 55°.
15:51And it will sit at 55° long after every
15:54air conditioner ever built has rusted
15:55into nothing. The Amish didn't lose this
15:58knowledge. You were just never given it.
16:00Now you have it. Drop your state in the
16:02comments and tell me what you pay for
16:04cooling in summer.
16:06And tell me if you have any land around
16:08your house, even a front yard, even a
16:10fence line, because this system fits in
16:12a strip the width of a car.
16:14If your grandfather ever had a spring
16:15house or a root cellar that kept food
16:17cold without electricity, I want to hear
16:19about that because that knowledge and
16:21this system are the same physics. They
16:23just gave it a different name. So, you
16:25think it was complicated. It's not
16:27complicated.
16:28The Earth has been doing this for 2,400
16:30years without a single moving part.
16:32>> [music]
16:33>> If you're the kind of person who
16:34believes real knowledge has been quietly
16:35pushed aside to protect someone else's
16:37profit, you already know what to do. Hit
16:41subscribe because next week I'm going to
16:43show you the Amish water system that
16:45produces clean drinking water with no
16:48pump, no filter,
16:50and no electricity [music]
16:51using a method the EPA tried to classify
16:53as non-compliant in 2012. They failed,
16:57and the reason they failed is a story
16:58you need [music] to hear.

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