Passive Solar design for Homes

Collecting free energy from the sun to heat your house in the winter is simple clever and costs nothing except a bit of common sense and proper design.

The fact that it uses the building elements such as windows walls and floors makes it all the more reason to ensure that your home or renovation takes advantage of this free energy source.

The five passive solar design principles will enable you to cool your home in the summer reducing air conditioning costs.

Unlike active solar heating systems the heat is cost free and works naturally. Passive solar will provide a fraction of your total heating energy need.

The size of that fraction will depend on where you live and your overall heating load.

It will vary from 20% to 100% of your heating load.

What sets this type of house apart is the design.

The most important thing about passive solar design is to take full advantage of your local climate conditions.

Using solar energy is about understanding direct solar gain as well as indirect solar gain and finally isolated solar gain.

It is easiest to design a new house with passive solar but retrofits can be adapted to collect and store solar heat.

Designing a house to avail of passive solar heat collection and storage you will need to consider and incorporate the principles of passive solar design.

Of course the other design elements such as glazing types and how the windows are located.


Insulation

Air tightness

Mechanical heat recovery

Ancillary heating if required.

The design principles can be applied if you use passive solar design systems such as.

Direct gain and indirect gain as well as isolated gain.

It is important not to forget summer design instead of completely focusing on winter heat gain.