It’s freezing cold across much of the United States. Are you wearing passive solar clothes to stay warm?

I know it sounds like an odd question. We tend to think of using solar design for houses, not clothes. I’ll explain.

If you know it’s a cold day, do you think about what you’re going to wear? Of course you do. You might wear several layers. The layering forms more tiny air spaces around you and increases the insulating effectiveness of your clothing. You might pick out dark colors. Even if you don’t think of this as “passive solar dressing,” it is. dark colors absorb the radiant energy from the sun better than light colors. I’m sure when you’re outside on a cold, but sunny day, you walk on the sunny side of the street to stay warmer than you’d be on the shaded side. Ah! Passive solar principles, again. It’s nothing more than proper insulation and receiving the free energy benefit from the sun. (more…)

When you get dressed in the morning, do you consider passive solar design principles? Probably not. At least not conciously. But I’ll bet you consider the weather as you choose what to wear? I do. If it’s going to be hot and sunny, I usually choose a light colored shirt that is made from a fabric that breathes.  Experience tells me to avoid black because it will soak up the sun’s heat and avoid a tightly woven fabric because it will trap air next to my skin and make me feel hotter. This is a principle of passive solar design that we use without even labeling it or thinking about it. And you can use these principles in your house design.

Metal roofs, now often referred to as “cool roofs,” can act like your light colored, open weave shirt and keep your house cooler in hot weather. They do this “passively”, that is they use no electricity in the process. Here’s why they work. In an article posted at Classic Metal Roofing Systems website, they list four energy benefits you’ll get with a metal roof. (more…)

Today, we awoke to a freak snowstorm here in Raleigh, North Carolina. I say “freak” because any snow is a rare occurrence in this part of the country. Snow in January is a novel concept in the southeast. Everything, and I mean everything was closed. We were crippled by Mother Nature.

When the flakes stopped falling, we had about six inches of nice, clean snow on the ground. I put on my tennis shoes (I don’t have boots anymore since I moved south) and found my gloves (they were in my golf bag where I left them following a chillier than usual round a few weeks ago) and set out to clear the snow. I don’t use a snow shovel any more. I’m not sure I still have one. I use my leaf blower, instead. It works surprisingly well. It fluffs up the snow and blows it away almost without a trace. I cleared my sizeable driveway in a little over an hour. The best part is my back doesn’t hurt!

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        An even simpler way to think about how to situate parts of a house with regard to climate and weather is to imagine yourself standing outside on your property on a sunny, windy winter day. To stay warm, you would naturally turn away from the north wind and face the southern sun. You might even turn your collar up. By making this simple adjustment, you would be sheltering yourself from the wind and maximizing the solar heat gain from the sun. Well, that’s exactly what architects do for houses when they place the garage in the path of the prevailing wind and position the windows toward the sun. The house is responding to the climate in the same way you would. These ideas are the first steps in passive solar design. And best of all, there’s no added cost for any of this. By merely acknowledging and responding to the climate of the site, the house will live in harmony with the nature around it. (more…)

      Houses built in northern climates should be designed to capture natural light, to brighten and warm the rooms used during daylight hours. Winters can be gloomy and light deprivation can cause a wintertime depression. By simply allowing as much daylight into the house as possible, a properly oriented house can relieve these symptoms and lower the consumption of electricity required to operate artificial lights.  (more…)

      Want to have some fun drawing on your computer? Check out SketchUp. It’s an easy to use, intuitive program that not only lets you draw easily on your computer, it lets you draw in three dimensions! Google bought SketchUp a short time ago and it is now offered in a free version with a lot of functionality. (more…)