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Do You Realize You Live In A Solar Home? Yes, you.
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By Rick Chapo
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Mention the word solar in relation to a home and most people getideas of panel systems on roofs. In truth, any home with windowsis using solar energy.
Easy, Free Energy
You may not realize it, but you live in a solar home. In fact,every home you've lived in was powered with solar in one form oranother. This concept is known as passive solar and can be usedto save you serious money on utilities.
In every home, there is a room or set of rooms that bake in thesun during the day. Many people know this, but don't realize it,when they complain about certain rooms burning up during the daywhile others are cold. The hot rooms, of course, are sitting inthe sun all day. Since the sun is essentially a nuclear reactor,the power is sends to the earth is immense. Rooms can heat up tosweltering temperatures within 30 minutes as a testament to thispower. Given some thought, you can use this power to passivelyheat your home.
Sunlight is very easy to put to work in a home. When you wantheat, let it in. When you don't, block the access areas. Whensun energy enters an area through a window, the area is known asan isolated gain location. For instance, light streaming througha bedroom window will make the room an isolated gain area thatheats up if you close the door. There are two excellent ways toput this to your use.
You can use sunlight to passively heat your home by addingisolated gain areas that track the path of the sun. Heat risesand evens out through a home. If the home has isolated accessareas that track the path of the sun, you can gain free heatthroughout the day. Most homes will have windows at the end ofeach home, but limited sunlight access through the roof. A goodway to add heating to your home is through sun room roofs orskylights.
A second method for turning the sunlight into heat involvesmaterials. Certain materials take longer to heat up in the sun,but also will generate heat longer once the sun has set. This isknown as using thermal mass to heat a home. For instance,masonry materials universally collect and hold energy from thesun. Used for flooring below a window, the materials will heatup throughout the day. Once the sun sets, the materials willcontinue to expend heat for hours on end. If you doubt this,give some thought to how long your fireplace continues toradiate heat after the fire has gone out.
Using sunlight to heat your home passively will never replacethe need for utilities. Minor home improvements, however, canhelp create heat during the day and make your home morecomfortable.
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