Well...
...actually
people have been building houses that utilize the power of the sun
for millennia, paying attention to the climate and to where the sun
appears in the sky in winter and summer as they choose the position
and materials for their home. Just one example is the native peoples
of the Southwest of what is now the United States: they built adobe
houses that kept cool in the summer and retained heat in the winter.
But
the first modern house that had integrated solar heating and
radiation cooling is credited to Raymond W. Bliss. This house,
finished on this date in 1955, used a large slanted slab of steel and
glass to capture heat from the sun. This heat was ducted into the
house. In the summer, the same ducts were used with fans to cool the
house.
The
house is in Tucson, Arizona, and it only cost $4,000 for materials
and labor!
Nowadays...
There
is a lot of information on “green” home designs that utilize
geothermal or solar power and passive heating and cooling. You can
find a sample here and here and here—but there
are so many links on Google that you could spend all day just sampling
them!
But
a word of warning: these houses cost a fair bit more than $4000 in
materials and labor.
!
Learn
some more...
I
found this video to be very helpful in explaining passive
heating and cooling.
DTE Energy has some kid-friendly info on solar energy and passive
heating and cooling.
Also
on this date:
The constant temperature and 'infinite' heat of subsurface earth makes geothermal heat pump technology an ideal solution for heating and cooling your Cape home. It's a technology that has had only a few 'takers', but I believe that we'll see more and more homes equipped with geothermal heat pumps. The claim is possible savings of up to 80 percent.
ReplyDeleteDuctless Air Conditioning
Nice article Hamilton Heating and Cooling
ReplyDelete