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.
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!
As you research passive solar home design, you may run into the term "sun-tempered" for homes. A sun-tempered home is a sort of "halfway house" option, rather than the whole-hog option of true passive solar design. Let's look at how the two compare:
Let's step away from the "white picket fence" ideal of home design for a moment to consider one of the other extremes: log cabins. Some people say log homes and cabins are extremely efficient, while others claim that they cannot compare with the advantages of modern technology. So which is true?
As with most "which is better?" questions, the answer lies somewhere in the middle ground.
If you're thinking of building your own home or work in the construction industry, you need to know about "natural conditioning". Otherwise known under a variety of names, such as "passive solar" and "day-lighting", this is the practice of designing and building a home so that it works to reduce your heating bills by optimizing natural heating and cooling.
Most engineers call it "integrated design", but green systems installers like to use the word "holistic" because it rings of holistic therapy, holistic medicine and other natural alternatives that work just as well as their traditional counterparts. But what is it?
Holistic or integrated home design is the art and science of creating homes which take full advantage of the natural resources available – notably light and heat – while providing a comfortable, pleasant living environment. Like all things, it has its advantages and disadvantages.
The ideal layout for a home built around passive solar concepts is a simple rectangle. Not only does this ensure that the long axis of the building gathers as much solar energy as possible (assuming it faces true south, of course), but it also limits the amount of summer heat gathered by the east- and west-facing sides.
As solar power becomes more familiar, innovations appear and new ideas are applied to existing technology to either improve output or come up with entirely new ways of harnessing the sun's renewable energy for everyday use. Solar chimneys are one of those innovations that could one day produce power on a grand scale.
