It’s 19 degrees outside this morning and the sun hasn’t yet
come out. It’s cool inside, but we haven’t
frozen pipes because we use something in addition to our solar panels and hook
up to the grid. We use passive solar
design to store heat for the cooler parts of the night/day.
In passive solar design, we use the parts of the building and
their locations, along with the climate of an area, to transfer energy for
heating or cooling. This design
technique uses the windows, walls, and
floors to collect, store, and distribute
solar energy in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the
summer. This is called passive solar design because, unlike Photo Voltaic solar
heating systems, it doesn't involve the use of mechanical and electrical
devices
The form of the surface, orienting building and windows and
thermal mass will play a role in passive solar energy. There are three main methods to utilize
passive solar heating. 1) direct gain, 2) trombe wall or 3. Green house
strategies that can be mixed. Our home is adobe and oriented for direct
gain.
This method takes the angle of the sun, lower in winter and
higher in the summer, along with the position and number of the windows. The sun shines into our home and warms the
air of the room, but also stores energy using the tiles and adobe walls. These absorb energy and release it towards
the inside at night.
Passive design is
practiced throughout the world and has been shown to produce buildings with low
energy costs, reduced maintenance, and good comfort. There are few places that
would be able to use only this form of energy, but it can be supplemented with
local wood to remain sustainable.
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