What is Passive Solar Design?
This is basically using the yearly solar cycle with the way the property is placed on the plot in question to reduce the costs of heating or cooling to keep the inside comfortable. In effect you are being ‘smart’ about how the building is constructed to make the Sun your friend rather then your enemy.. Why spend lots of money using air-conditioning and heating and cooling systems to keep comfortable when you can use what nature provides?
The yearly solar cycle
In Winter you will notice that the Sun is lower in the sky compared to in Summer. This simple difference in apparent height is a key element of passive solar design. By the careful selection of the windows and their overhangs to the sunny side of a building, you can set things up so that the Winter sun gets ‘into’ the building, whilst in Summer the overhangs block the Sun from coming in and baking you. BTW this is nothing new, covered verandas produce the same result.
Now if you combine this with something called ‘Thermal Mass’ – which basically is a heat absorbing material placed in such a way so that it is exposed to the Winter Sun – you get the Winter Sun heating that mass so that at night it can give off its heat to keep you warm at night.
Cross ventilation
The other ‘trick’ is to set up your property so that the natural flow of air across your plot is able to ‘flow through’ your property during a hot Summer night to help cool it down. There are tricks you can with landscaping, like a well placed water feature, which can really boost this effect.
Ceiling Fans
Keeping cool, or warm, is something you really feel on your skin – the temperature in another room, or on the other side of the room your in does not effect your comfort. So make use of this, which is what ceiling fans do; they move the air in the room aiding your feeling of what the temperature is. This is alot cheaper to run than air conditioning to keep cool. You can also run the ceiling fan in reverse in Winter to help the hot air down in the room rather than up by the roof, so reducing your heating costs.
Want to know more? See this article for a detailed explaination of what Passive Solar is. Also see this article for 10 easy tricks on keeping warm in Winter and cool in Summer.
An eco aware author.
