Understated Solar for Gray Winters
Architect Joseph Kawecki and the Pipics demonstrate an emerging concept in passive solar design, including photographs, details.
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The Pipics' home is one of the newer entries in Genesis and incorporates a sunspace that can, in thermal effect, be detached from the living are.
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Issue # 92 - March/April 1985
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Architect Joseph Kawecki and the Pipics demonstrate an emerging concept in passive solar design:
The Pipics' home is one of the newer
entries in Genesis and incorporates a sunspace
that can, in thermal effect, be detached from the
living are.
Ten years ago, a builder could simply cover the south wall of a house with glass and call it a solar home. The public was hungry for relief from the energy crunch, and passive solar housing was as much a symbol of a solution as it was a fix in itself. Indeed, passive houses did (and still do) demand much less space-heating energy than the norm, but such dwellings have also had a few teething problems over the years. Thankfully, today's solar designs are able, in many instances, to overcome those difficulties—largely because of the experience gained by the pioneers of the seventies.
To name just a few of the discoveries made in the last decade, thermal mass has now become an accepted feature in most designs (not just in homes built from adobe, as used to be the case) . . . superinsulation has gradually been mixed with solar features . . . and designers have recognized that varying the amount of insulation isn't the only response needed in order to adapt to different climates. As a result of these, and other, lessons, many of the new breed of solar homes don't look as ostentatiously glass-covered as their ancestors, but they perform well and are far more comfortable to live in.
Tom and Crystal Pipic's house, in the Genesis Solar Subdivision near Columbus, Ohio, is a fine example of this refinement in thought on passive solar design. It demonstrates the principles that architect Joseph Kawecki has arrived at after years of doing solar design to suit the exceedingly complex climate of the Midwest.
The interior of the sunspace. The
veneer brickwork keeps thermal mass
to a minimum. A Vermont Castings
Vigilant provides backup heat.
DESIGN FOR A VARIABLE CLIMATE
To give you an idea of the adversity that solar buildings in Ohio must face, consider the following: The January heating degreedays in Columbus have a 66% chance of falling between 1,000 and 1,400; January typically offers between 2 and 6 clear days, but they're most likely to come in one string; and actual clear day radiation values typically vary 10 to 15% from the predicted averages. Thus the heating load on a house in the Columbus area is very likely to vary by at least 40% over several decades, and the direct solar gain that will be available to meet that demand can be counted on to be small and fickle. These sorts of conditions are enough to leave a designer mumbling, "How much glass? How much mass?"
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