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Room Layout for Passive Solar Homes
In an ideal passive solar world, homes would be built as a long string of single rooms, so that every room would be heated by the sun and there would be no need to transport warmth from warmer to cooler rooms. In practical terms, long houses are rarely appropriate: traffic flow inside such buildings is often difficult and housing lots in towns and cities tend to be square or rectangular, rather than extended oblongs.
Natural Alternatives to Manufactured Insulation
The mainstays of modern home insulation are fiberglass, rigid foam and cellulose. But there are natural alternatives to these which are worth considering, especially if you're going for super-green construction!
What are Earth Berming and Earth Sheltering?
One unusual feature of many passive solar homes is that they are partially buried. Given the natural human dislike of living underground, this often strikes people as a "caveman" approach to efficient living but, in reality, it is an efficient means of conserving potentially enormous amounts of energy. And no, living in a home that uses earth berming or earth sheltering is not like living in a cave!
How to Keep Insulation Dry
One of the most important factors in energy efficiency is home insulation. And one of the most important parts of insulation is keeping the material dry. There are two reasons for this:
Counting the Cost of Passive Solar Installations
Most, if not all, proponents of solar energy will exhort the long-term value of installing passive (and active) solar systems. The return on investment over the life of the installation is always impressive on paper and professional installers will happily spend hours explaining how the cost works out as a tiny percentage of your income. Then they'll just as happily bill you five figures!
Openable and Non-Openable Windows
Windows have undergone a huge number of advances over the last few decades. While most construction methods and materials have remained the same, windows have changed from heat-sucking drafty holes to efficient light-capturing devices which help improve energy efficiency.
Energy-Efficient Glazing for Windows
All parts of a window are important when you consider energy efficiency, but the glazing comes first. About 75% of a window's surface area is glazed, with the sash and frame making up the other 25%, so it is important to make the right choices for the glazing.
How to Insulate a New Home's Foundations
The foundations are an important part of your home, for the obvious reason that they support everything else. But they are also a major source of energy loss unless they are properly insulated, since they are in constant contact with the cold, often damp surrounding earth.
The situation is made worse by the fact that concrete is an excellent heat conductor. Although this is a benefit in a concrete radiant floor slab, for example, it's a real concern in a home's foundations.
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