Build a Solar Home and Let the Sunshine In

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Energy & Environment

By Dan Chiras

If you're planning to build your dream home someday, this article could save you thousands of dollars. Including simple, passive-solar features in any style home can cost next to nothing up front and save you unbelievable amounts over the long-term in reduced energy bills.

Millions of homes easily could be designed to capture free heat directly from the sun. But instead we are burning—wasting—huge amounts of oil and natural gas every winter. The missed opportunities to tap into solar energy are so fantastic they boggle the mind, and nowhere is our blindness to the potential of solar more troublesome than in the home-heating arena.

You can incorporate passive-solar heating in any style home, as the photos that accompany this story show. Or you can add solar features when remodeling an existing home, as long as the south side of the house receives full sun most of the day. When correctly designed, solar homes provide unrivaled comfort in winter and summer They offer large, south-facing windows, generous views, sunny interiors and open floor plans.

Architect Debbie Rucker Coleman, who has been designing solar homes since 1985, says her clients are impressed with how spacious the sunlight makes the home feel. "In addition to low heating bills, passive-solar homes are cool in summer. They are delightful places to live," she says.

Coleman's drawings show how two conventional house styles could easily become passive-solar homes.

HOW IT WORKS

Heating homes with sunlight, known as passive-solar heating, is based on the simple idea of using south-facing windows to admit low-angled winter sun. Sunlight streaming into the home warms the interior space. Thermal mass, such as tile floors and interior masonry walls, stores the sun's heat and releases it when room temperatures fall at night or during cloudy weather. Choose a house design that accommodates the right amounts of south-facing glass and thermal mass. Add careful caulking and ample insulation (usually slightly higher than building codes currently require), and you'll have a solar heated home that requires little or no heat from any nonrenewable fuel source. In the summer, a solar home's thermal mass and insulation, together with properly sized overhangs to shade the windows, keep the home comfortable and reduce cooling requirements.