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Passive
Solar Home
Click here
to view the passive solar video
August 26, 2008
Our home was featured in an article in
a new home journal. You can read it at The
Country Home Journal .
I suppose when some people think of a
passive solar home and solar living they think of an unusual building with a lot of glass
on one side. Although passive solar design does include a lot of windows
on the South facing side in the Northern Hemisphere or North facing side
in the Southern Hemisphere, a solar home doesn't have to look any different
than any other. Most people probably have some room that has a sun
facing window and notice how much solar energy in the form of heat is brought into the room from that
window. Passive solar design just provides for a lot more rooms facing the sun.
Besides having many rooms facing the sun,
there needs to be some thermal mass to store and radiate the heat during
the evening and night. Our home is built on a concrete slab. Even with
carpet installed over the slab, the heat from the sun transfers to the
slab and radiates back out later. Brick walls around fireplaces and even
the walls will absorb and radiate the heat for a little while. There are
many other passive solar designs that incorporate having a brick wall or cylinders
filled with water right in front of the window. We chose not to do this
because of the extra time and effort and the odd look of using this
approach.
Our house is insulated to the present
standards with R-19 insulation in the walls and R-30 in the ceiling. The
insulation keeps the heat in well. We have not taken all the steps to
totally make our house airtight. Making sure of all the leaks around
electrical outlets and the like can help hold in the heat, but having too
tight of an area can prevent the necessary air exchange that provides good
air quality.
I am amazed at how many new homes that I
have seen built over the last few years that do not take into
consideration the solar heating possibilities of a site. I imagine that the
heating costs for those new homes are higher than need be. A secondary
source that we use to heat our house is a wood burning stove. We use about
three cords of wood a year to heat our house on the really cold nights or
cloudy days during the winter.
Please visit the Living
On Solar Blog to talk about or ask questions about a passive solar home.
The video runs for 2 minutes and
14 seconds and
shows how our passive solar home works. We hope that you enjoy the video.
Please watch our other solar videos elsewhere on this site.
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Click here
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