Greetings everyone,
If any of you are even considering the idea of building your own home I would very strongly urge you to consider a passive solar design.
When I designed our home that was one of my most important considerations. Accordingly, a very large part of the south side of our home is all windows. When we sent out the design to have the technical drawings done, the calculations were done to make the maximum use of passive solar.
We had friends visiting us a couple of weeks ago. They had planned to go skiing with my husband but when they arrived at the hill it was so brutally cold with a wicked wind chill that they just returned to the house. It was about -28C outside with a wind chill approaching -40C and yet when they got back to the house it was warm and toasty without any heat on.
It got somewhat warmer here yesterday with the temperature approaching 0C and the sun shone down all day long. The house actually got uncomfortably warm for me. I was tempted to open some windows but sanity prevailed and I did not. However, even by the time I went to bed around 11:30, the living room was still a very comfortable 69F degrees and I had not used any heat of any kind. When I got up this morning, it was 65F degrees which is not as warm. :)
However, the sun is blazing away again today and the four rooms at the front of our house are presently 75F degrees and our living room and kitchen at the back of the house are 68F degrees. As the days get longer, the sun starts to sweep around the side of the house before setting and comes blasting in my living room windows, thus making it just that little bit warmer before the end of the day.
These are the thermostats that are in the front and back of the house. They actually regulate the propane fireplace and propane stove but with these temperatures, they never need to come on. :)
If you live in a cold climate such as we do, eastern Ontario, you need to worry more about keeping yourself warm in winter than cool in the summer. With rising fuel costs, despite the lower cost of gasoline at the moment, it is going to simply get more and more expensive to heat your home. With passive solar, the sun is heating your home for free and with no resulting damage to the environment. It is a win-win situation.
Thanks for visiting, have a wonderful day. Cheers.
If any of you are even considering the idea of building your own home I would very strongly urge you to consider a passive solar design.
When I designed our home that was one of my most important considerations. Accordingly, a very large part of the south side of our home is all windows. When we sent out the design to have the technical drawings done, the calculations were done to make the maximum use of passive solar.
We had friends visiting us a couple of weeks ago. They had planned to go skiing with my husband but when they arrived at the hill it was so brutally cold with a wicked wind chill that they just returned to the house. It was about -28C outside with a wind chill approaching -40C and yet when they got back to the house it was warm and toasty without any heat on.
It got somewhat warmer here yesterday with the temperature approaching 0C and the sun shone down all day long. The house actually got uncomfortably warm for me. I was tempted to open some windows but sanity prevailed and I did not. However, even by the time I went to bed around 11:30, the living room was still a very comfortable 69F degrees and I had not used any heat of any kind. When I got up this morning, it was 65F degrees which is not as warm. :)
However, the sun is blazing away again today and the four rooms at the front of our house are presently 75F degrees and our living room and kitchen at the back of the house are 68F degrees. As the days get longer, the sun starts to sweep around the side of the house before setting and comes blasting in my living room windows, thus making it just that little bit warmer before the end of the day.
These are the thermostats that are in the front and back of the house. They actually regulate the propane fireplace and propane stove but with these temperatures, they never need to come on. :)
If you live in a cold climate such as we do, eastern Ontario, you need to worry more about keeping yourself warm in winter than cool in the summer. With rising fuel costs, despite the lower cost of gasoline at the moment, it is going to simply get more and more expensive to heat your home. With passive solar, the sun is heating your home for free and with no resulting damage to the environment. It is a win-win situation.
Thanks for visiting, have a wonderful day. Cheers.
And today they're talking about selling off parts of Hydro One...... Do you remember when I said I wanted to go off-grid? And then built a new house and didn't.... :( Well the tons of insullation we put in certainly have helped and we paid dearly for that. So in comparisons to your very think straw walls..... gee, which was a better investment? Straw of course!! :) I have a wall of south facing windows and my thermometer today (now actually at 7pm) is at 76degrees. I step outside a few times just to cool off! That sun is everyone's friend and we should take advantage of it when we can! Thanks Mel for these great posts - I enjoy reading them very much and look forward to receiving them.
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