Interested in Solar Power for homes? Here you will find more options than just solar panels. It depends on where you live and to which side of the house you should put the most windows on. For the northern hemisphere it is more common to assume that the sun rises more toward the south side of your home. This is the side where you want to have the most windows in your home.
Solar Power For Homes Example
That way you are allowing the sun to shine through and warm your home naturally. You also need to make sure that there are no trees that are directly close to the house that may prevent the sun from shining directly into the home.
Solar Power For Homes – How To Start?
Adding home solar panels outside where you can attract the heat from the sun can be transformed into energy to power your home and warm your water. The products and installation that it takes to get this accomplished will cost a little more than if you built a standard home without using solar power (more on solar system facts).
The good thing about solar power for the home is that it is an initial investment. Overtime when you totally rely on the sun to heat your home and all the other functions it can perform you will not have a monthly bill because you don’t pay for the sun every month like you do with other power sources.
Use ceiling fans to reduce the amount of time you may need to run your air conditioner. Ceiling fans can produce a more even amount of heat and air without having hot and cold pockets throughout the home.
Use metal insulated doors that will keep out the cold and bring in the heat. In solar power homes you better keep the doors closed during the time of day that the sun is shining in on that side of your home in order to save the heat inside your home longer.
Owning a solar power home means that you are encouraging preserving our natural resources for the future. It also means that you will not worry with the increase in cost of electricity and gas because with solar-energy you are using the best source out there without hurting the environment.
There Are More Options To Solar Power Your Home Than Just Solar Panels!
Thermal mass that absorbs and holds in the heat. A thermal mass like stone, concrete, earthen floors, adobe blocks, cob, rammed earth, clay sand earthen plasters, brick, etc. is able to absorb and release excess heat. It traps and holds heat while the sun is shining and disperses the heat when the sun goes down.
Trombe walls are another way of solar heating and a natural ventilation system that uses air channels to hold the heat between a glass object and a thermal mass that is facing the sun. The sunlight gets trapped and stored inside this wall and is then circulated though vents and the top and the bottom of the wall. The wall radiates the heat.
There are also low-cost unglazed solar collectors, also called transpired solar collectors. They consist of perforated absorber sheets that are exposed to the sun and through which air is drawn. The perforated absorber sheets can be attached to vertical walls facing the sun. The wall absorbs the sunlight and heats the air when it enters into the ventilation system. These relatively inexpensive unglazed collectors typically work best with small to moderate heating applications or as a complement to traditional heating systems, where they can reduce the use of fuel by pre-heating water or air.
A thermal or solar chimney is also a solar ventilation system. It is made of a thermal mass that is hollow inside. The chimney will warm the air inside the chimney and causing the heat to rise. The rise allows the air to circulate and vent properly.
Another good solar power for homes example is simply a sun-room. These rooms are attached to a home or a building and are constructed of glass panels from the floor to the ceiling. It is usually facing the morning sun in order to get the full effect of the heat. When the sun shines into the room the glass allows the sunrays heat the furniture and everything in the room. These areas become the source that holds the heat in so that it will not escape back out of the glass. This type of heating is natural and can be very efficient if it is constructed correctly.
Solar Cooling is a great way to ventilate a building. There are 2 different solar powered air conditioner systems:
- the desiccant systems (here air passes over a common drying material such as silica gel to draw moisture from the air) and
- the absorption chiller systems (where solar water heating collectors and a thermal-chemical absorption process, similar to a refrigerator, is used to produce air-conditioning without using electricity).
As you see, there are several ways that we can provide heating and cooling to our homes, businesses, buildings or other structures that need to be heated. These solar power for homes ideas listed above are by using all natural material and sustainable materials that will pay off in the long run when you have heat using the sun and not an artificial heating source that may be produced by non-renewable resources. We all need heat or cooling no matter what.
