Solar Heating
Can be implemented if you are building your
home from scratch or if you are just renovating it. You can transform it
to a solar home by making some modifications. When your gas and
electricity bills become hard to handle, switching to
solar energy
to heat your home can be a wise choice. The heat coming from the sun
spread equally when reaching the earth. To take advantage of the solar
energy few steps are necessary.
When building your home, numerous choices are available for solar heating.
The most important one is to build it facing true south. It is the direction
where the sun rises. This way the house will get maximum sunshine during the
day.
Installing double-glazed windows of good quality is important too. They will
let the heat from the sun come through and will keep the rooms warm for a
long period of time. At sunset the home will stay warm thanks to the
sunlight that came in all day long. In order to keep the heat inside the
house, doors must stay closed as much as possible. It is also important to
have curtains (preferably insulated) on the windows during the night; they
will also help keeping the heat inside. When building a house, another thing
to keep in mind is to not plan for too many windows on the side facing
sunset, you want to avoid the house to cool down too quickly.
Transforming your home to take advantage of natural solar heating is not
very difficult. It is obvious that changing the direction of your house to
face sunrise is impossible, but you can still make some modifications to
trap the heat coming from the sun. A good and well designed insulation will
definitely help. Double glazed windows for example are a must. An original
method to use solar energy for heating purposes is to build a sun room
facing south to catch the sun from early morning. The sun will heat the
glass structure and provide hot air inside the sun room. The warm air
obtained can be pushed into the house by using fans. This can provide
sufficient heating during the day.
As the sun doesn’t shine everyday, you will of course need a backup heating
system running on gas or electricity, but you will significantly reduce the
amount of time your electric or gas heater is running.
Using solar heating is not only a good way for saving money; it is also a
natural method to heat your home which will also help in improving the
environment.
