Living Off Grid – Home and Energy Options Part 2

Reader Contribution by Ed Essex
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In Part II of this Series we are going to talk about more design features to be taken into consideration when you design your off grid home.

Windows: I could probably write a whole blog on windows alone but my main purpose in sharing our experiences in building a home for off grid living is to present  a broad overview of many of the options we had to wade through and to give others who are following us a starting point to do their own research.

Windows are a critical factor in energy efficiency. Considerations range from the different types of windows to location in the house and the sizes chosen. Double or triple pane? Argon filled and type E? Wood, metal or vinyl?
Passive solar design is something I will cover in depth later on. Window sizes and location are a big factor in passive design. My research suggested that you use the following glass quantities based on square footage of your floor plan:
East side of the house 4%, west side 2%, north side 4%, and south side 7-12%. So if you had a floor plan of 1000 square feet, on the east side of the house you would allow for a total square footage of 1000 SF x 4% = 40 square feet of glass and so on. Always put the most glass on the south side of the house if you can.
Our house faces east by southeast which isn’t ideal. It had to face that way due to the hillside terrain we built on. So we couldn’t strictly adhere to the formula explained above but just by being aware of the affect windows have on passive design will allow you to do the best you can with what you have to work with.

The sun is one factor and cold is another. My wife Laurie made insulated curtains for all of our windows and they make a huge difference. Without them we would probably burn an extra 1-2 cords of wood per year.
In a perfect world your home will face south. I have a friend who was able to do just that. Even though they live in the cold country in northern Idaho, if it’s a sunny day, they are able to shut the wood stove down by noon because it gets too hot otherwise. They put most of their windows on the south side of the house and when the sun comes up it heats everything it touches. They have concrete floors and an indoor concrete planter that absorbs the sun most of the day. After the sun goes down, the concrete still continues to emit the heat that it soaked up earlier. Passive heat works and is something that should be considered in every home whether on or off grid.

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