LITTLE ROCK — I promised myself last year that we’d do what we could to our home to make it more comfortable this year. It stayed cold indoors all last winter and we hated it. You and others I read often talk about passive solar heating, and how this is a great way to keep your home warm in winter without spending a lot of money on your heating bills.

Can you please explain what this means?

Passive solar heating is probably the oldest and the easiest way to stay warm in your home during even the coldest winters, says Ken Sheinkopf, a communications specialist with the American Solar Energy Society (ases.org). But it does call for some remodeling or new strategies to take advantage of all the features it offers.

“If you’re planning to build a new house, I strongly recommend that you work with your builder to incorporate passive solar design, but even if you just want your current home to be more comfortable, thereare some things you can do,” he says.

The word “passive” says it all. Your home will help keep you comfortable without needing mechanical, energy-using products like heaters or fans.

And the passive home strategy can also be adapted to help keep a home comfortable in hot weather.

“The general strategy is based on the laws of physics that tell us that heat moves from hot to cold until there is no temperature difference between the two areas,” Sheinkopf explains. “In cold weather, you can use this principle to have the sun’s warmth stored in your home during the day and then released in the colder evening. What makes this different from just a natural occurrence is that you do things in and to your home that facilitate the process.”

An important part of the passive solar process is the concept of thermal mass - theuse of materials within the home to store heat.

Examples include concrete, stones, masonry, bricks and tiles, all materials that are often found below or behind the surface of walls and floors. There are also absorber materials - exposed masonry walls, partitions, or even large containers of water that are struck by sunlight and absorb the heat.

Other components of a good solar home are some type of solar collector and large windows, especially located on the south side of the home with unobstructed exposure to the sun.

The sun gets into the home through these windows and is able to reach the thermal mass or absorbers inside.

Once the heat is absorbed during the day, the next issue is how to get it to circulate through the home. Though some houses have mechanical systems like fans or blowers to circulate the heat, many are truly passive and just rely on the natural heat transfer modes of conduction, convection and radiation.

“To help keep the process operating, passive systemsusually include various types of sun controls,” Sheinkopf says. “For example, blinds and outdoor awnings can be regulated to open when the sun is desired - usually between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. in winter - and close at other times to help keep the heat from flowing outdoors. Good roof overhangs will allow the lower winter sun to get indoors while keeping out much of the higher summer sun that can overheat the home.”

Other passive cooling strategies primarily involve blocking the sun during the day in hot weather, and opening up the home if there are nighttime breezesand cooler outdoor temperatures.

One of the biggest advantages of these heating and cooling strategies is that they don’t use electricityor gas-driven mechanical equipment to provide indoor comfort, greatly lowering your energy use.

Even if you don’t want to build a sunspace off of your living room or put a masonry wall near your fireplace or have new skylights put in your bedroom, you can still take advantage of the general passive principles by regulating how the sun gets indoors by using blinds, shades and drapes as well as outdoor shading devices.

HomeStyle, Pages 37 on 11/07/2009

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