What about Passive Solar Energy?
If you have been thinking of going solar, but your state doesn’t have good rebates, or your house isn’t right for one reason or another, consider passive solar. Making use of passive solar simply involves understanding the relationship between your home and the sun. Here’s how to use some gloriously easy passive solar energy techniques for your home.
Passive solar energy works by taking in less solar heat in the summer and storing heat in the winter, reducing the need for heavy duty heating and cooling energy systems. What makes it passive is that it takes advantage of the sun’s energy without fans, pumps or any other kind of motor to circulate the heat. That means no expense to you to maintain anything once you figure out how to best employ it.
Passive solar heating has been around for centuries. The earliest kinds of passive solar heating were demonstrated by the use of caves as shelter, which kept people cool during the summer and the trapped heat kept dwellers warm in the winter. Another typical use of passive solar heating are greenhouses. Greenhouses’ glass design allows for the sun’s energy to trap radiated heat, automatically warming the structure.
Typically in the Northern Hemisphere, passive solar homes in cooler climates will have large amounts of glass windows facing due south to absorb as much as possible of the sun’s warmth. In warmer climates, the glass panels face west or east and employ shading as a cooling mechanism. There are also shade cloths that can be put on all windows in the hot summer months that will dramatically reduce the temperature inside of your home. Rooms that generate their own heat, such as the kitchen, should be placed on the north side of your lot in order to heat your home where it gets the coldest. Also, planting trees on the north and west sides of property should help protect homes from chilling winds by acting as a buffer ( Passive Solar Home Design Checklist). During the summer months, covering your front and back yards with landscape including trees and shrubberies creates shades to cool down those long hot days.
Options for inside your home include using thermal insulation to reduce unwanted heat transfer, or heavy curtains and shutters to keep the warm inside and prevent the cold air from trickling in through the glass window panes. You might also want to employ shutters and curtains to keep the heat out of your house in the day and then open windows and doors at night to let the cooler air circulate through the house.
Even if you are not ready for panels right now, there are still steps you can take using the sun to save energy costs!
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I’d like to agree with you completely but I think In have to look out for more info on this one. Thanks for the new knowledge though ^_^ By the way if I may ask do you have any idea about free insulation rebates in Australia? As I am writing a paper on it.