Practical Passive Solar Examples

Reader Contribution by Leigha Dickens

The MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIR is on its way to my lovely little mountain town this very weekend. (If you’re going to be there, you can catch my workshop on Net-Zero home design on Sunday afternoon!) In preparation, I was tasked by our marketing department to look through some of the various green homes we’ve built in the area and pull together the highlights of their green features. As usual, I wanted to list all kind of nerdy exciting details of heat transfer coefficients and Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratings…and was told, with my marketing department’s usual patience, to cut a bit for simplicity and clarity. In doing that, one thing really stood out me. All these homes had one salient feature in common, one aspect to their design that really augmented their claim to green fame.

That feature is passive solardesign.

Blogs and articles abound about passive solar design principles. If you’re a regular MOTHER EARTH NEWS reader, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. My aim today then, is not to explain it, but to celebrate it. It’s darn neat to see how many of our houses have put passive solar design into practice! Especially here, in a southeastern climate, where cooling is just as important a consideration as heating, and high humidity can be a concern.

A Quiet Mountain Retreat

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