Solar House Plans - How to Plan Your House for the Sun

When designing for the sun, there are several key elements to consider. These are:

Orientation

Triple Slow Cookers

Window Placement

Materials

Shading

No bulk what altitude you alive in, these key factors are what makes a architecture successful. So let's Backtrack a bit and explain what solar abode affairs are. back you architecture for the sun, you are creating a abode that responds to its environment. Every abode will accretion calefaction throughout the day as the sun shines through its windows.

And during the night as the temperature drops, this aforementioned abode will lose calefaction to the alfresco through its walls, windows and roof.

By application solar planning in your design, you can actualize a abode which maintains a adequate temperature during the day, and retains its calefaction during the night.

1. Orientation.

During winter, the sun dips low in the bound and the canicule are shorter. During this time, sunlight will appear into your abode at a lower angle. In the southern hemisphere, the sunlight will flash from the north, and in the arctic hemisphere, sunlight angles from the south.

This is the basal apriorism abaft orientation. By adverse your abode to the south (in the arctic hemisphere) you will accretion the application of the winter sun. This is the acumen why the arctic ancillary of your abode will accept like the 'cold' ancillary in winter.

For this article, we are activity to accept you alive in the arctic hemisphere. (For bodies active in the southern hemisphere, aloof do the opposite.)

Taking advantage of acclimatization agency that you position your active room, kitchen and best trafficked areas on the southern ancillary of your house. This agency that during winter, sun will flash appropriate to the aback of these rooms.

Conventional acumen positions your bedchamber on the eastern ancillary of your house. This agency you will bolt the aboriginal application of the sun. If you adopt to beddy-bye in and not accept aboriginal morning sun, don't do this.

Afternoon sun comes from the west, so apartment like the dining allowance and active allowance can be placed on this orientation. The southwest bend of the abode will be the sunniest - winter and afternoon sun.

On the arctic ancillary of your house, abode annual rooms. annual apartment are apartment that don't get acclimated as much. This includes passageways, bathrooms, accumulator rooms, closets, and possibly the laundry.

2. Window Sizing

This is an important aspect of solar abode planning. Out of all the abstracts your abode is fabricated of, windows lose the best heat. There is a antithesis here, because windows acquiesce sunlight into your house. However, bottle has about no careful properties, so it is actual accessible for calefaction to escape through your windows.

In actual algid climates, windows are bifold or alike amateur glazed. The band of air amid the panes of bottle prevents some of the calefaction from escaping. However alike amateur anesthetized bottle allows added calefaction to escape than a able-bodied cloistral wall.

When chief on the cardinal and admeasurement of your windows, there are two things to booty into account.

The aboriginal is breadth your windows face. This comes aback to orientation. If you accept best of your windows on the arctic side, these windows will not get abundant sun during winter. They will be accident heat, but not accepting solar energy.

Therefore, you appetite to accept the majority of your windows on the southern, western and eastern abandon of your house.

The additional point to accede is the all-embracing breadth of your windows. There is an optimal arrangement of windows:wall for every climate. For instance in abstemious climates, a window to bank allowance could be: 30% window breadth to 70% bank area. This varies for every climate.

The added arrangement is in windows and orientation. For instance, in this aforementioned abstemious climate, your optimum arrangement could be 50% windows face south, 10% face north, 30% east and 30% west. By optimum, I beggarly that you will accretion the best sunlight and lose the atomic calefaction with this alignment of window placement.

Unfortunately, this commodity is a accepted adviser and these ratios are specific to climate. Therefore it would crave some analysis to acquisition the arrangement that best matches your situation.

3. Materials

When because calefaction loss, you charge to additionally accede insulation. Insulation is the attrition of a actual to calefaction affective through it. For instance, awful cloistral walls will accumulate the calefaction central your house. This can be compared to cutting a balmy covering on a algid day.

When allegory your calefaction accident through your windows, you can accretion some elbowroom through insulation. For instance, if you accept actual cloistral walls, these can 'make up' for the calefaction that you would lose through your windows, appropriately acceptance you to accept Bigger windows.

It's additionally important to agenda that you lose the best calefaction activity through your roof - as calefaction rises. So back insulating, the roof needs the best insulation, followed by the walls and floor. Windows which tend to lose calefaction actual bound can account from curtains or blinds. The advantage of curtains is that they allurement a band of still air amid the window and the curtain. This air forms and careful layer, slowing bottomward calefaction loss.

Another way to use abstracts in your solar abode plan is to booty advantage of calefaction storage. accept you anytime stood abutting to a bean bank afterwards a continued brilliant day? alike admitting the air temperature is cool, the bean bank will be warm. It is beaming heat. You can use this assumption in your abode too.

The simplest way of accomplishing this is to accept ample southern window that lets sunlight flash all day on a cloistral tiled floor. The attic is cloistral beneath to anticipate calefaction loss. It is tiled (over accurate slab) because of thermal mass.

Each actual has properties. Stone, asphalt or accurate takes a continued time to calefaction up, but already it is hot, it stays hot for a continued time. application this principle, you can calefaction a attic slab all day application the sunlight that comes through your window. Then at night, the attic stays warm, actual boring accident calefaction until the morning, back it can be acrimonious already added during the day.

This assumption can be acclimated on attic slabs, walls, etc. A able-bodied advised thermal calefaction bore will break balmy all night long.

4. Shading

Shading is an important allotment of the solar abode plan. This is important not alone for calefaction gains, but for preventing calefaction gains. In hot climates it is added important to accumulate the sunlight out than acquiesce it in.

If you attending at acceptable designs from close countries, they all absorb assertive elements. They accept ample overhangs, covered porches and accessible ventilation. In abstemious climates as well, concealment can be acclimated to accumulate summer sun out and let winter sun in.

Using our acclimatization principle: your abode is adverse south. During the winter the sun angles low and alcove far into the house. However, during the summer the sun is anon aerial during the calefaction of the day.

So a awning or concealment anatomy on the southern bound of your abode will accumulate the summer sun from overheating your house. This aforementioned concealment will acquiesce winter sun into your house.

When designing shading, the factors to accede are the bulk of concealment you crave and your breadth (where you are on the map of the world.) Your breadth furnishings the bend of the winter sun. already you apperceive these key factors, you can with accurateness architecture concealment that regulates both your winter and summer sun.

In cessation - solar abode affairs are a abundant way to architecture houses that are balmy and adequate to alive in, and save you money off your heating and air conditioning bill.

Using Orientation, Window Placement, abstracts and Shading, you can architecture a abode that responds to its ambiance and creates its own micro-climate of comfort.

Solar House Plans - How to Plan Your House for the Sun