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Re:Giant 'sand battery' holds a week's heat for a whole town by Karellen on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @07:46PM (#39698984)
Something similar, but more for industrial processes: Can a Simple Brick Be the Next Great Battery? | John O'Donnell | TED

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Wgd4v_yW8

Re:Giant 'sand battery' holds a week's heat for a whole town by fy20 on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @11:41PM (#39700379)
This is basically how houses in central Europe work. The walls and floors are built with masonry (bricks or concrete) and wrapped in a thick layer of insulation. This results in a building with a very high thermal mass.

The result is that it takes a long time for the inside of the building to change temperature.

The other day we had a warm sunny spring day (5C / 40F), so I opened all the windows and did some spring cleaning. I set the thermostat to 16C as I didn't want the heating coming on while I was doing this.

I forgot about this, and the next day when I woke up wondered why the temperature in the house was only 20.5C (68F) as usually we have it set to 22C (72F) - then I remembered I effectively turned off the heating 18 hours ago, and forgot to turn it back on.