The Alternative Lifestyle Site

Eco-Friendly Housing: Learning From Mistakes

I guess you can tell by now that I am really sold on Solar Passive Design and I suspect if you were starting from scratch with all the right things in place you could create for yourself an amazingly comfortable home that was almost free to heat and cool. Yes, I did say almost.

Solar passive design is not the total solution to our energy needs for heating and cooling our homes. No matter how good the design, there will be times when supplementary measures are necessary.

So if I were considering some of the limitations of Solar Passive Design for residential and commercial purposes, this would be the first limitation I would consider:

• Passive Solar Design in homes reduces the need for extra energy needed to heat and cool the home. It does not negate that need entirely.

• It is possible and even desirable to have additional, mechanical heating source for days or weeks when the sun just doesn’t shine. Wood, gas, electrical, and geothermal are all suitable systems to have on hand for those seasons of the year when an additional boost of warmth or coolness is needed.

Now, let me share a bit of a story with you about my personal experience which I label learning from past mistakes.

Just a few years ago my family and I moved from living in a 1870′s stone cottage to living in a standard 1980′s cream brick veneer home.

• We didn’t give it much thought when we chose the new house (we were renting at the time and didn’t have a lot of options to choose from), but as luck would have it, this house faced it’s main living areas to the north and collected all that delicious sun.

• The difference to our lives was immense. The rooms were filled with light and warmth, the amount of energy we needed to buy to heat it to a comfortable level was significantly reduced and it was a delight to live in.

I’m sharing this with you because this was just a very ordinary four bedroom 1980′s family home. Ordinary construction, insulation and all the rest, but it faced exactly the right way to be snug on a winters day and reasonably comfortable (without air-conditioning) during our hot, hot summers. It’s large windows faced the sun (north in the Southern Hemisphere, South in the Northern Hemisphere) to catch the winter sun but they were protected from the summer sun by pergola’s, outside blinds and wide eaves (roof overhang).

As the builder I quoted in an earlier post on this subject said – 80% of the benefits can be derived by correct orientation to the sun. Imagine how nice it would be if there were floors to catch and store the heat to be released during the evening!!

There is much you can do to make your home more comfortable and more energy efficient. To that end I’ve created a series of video’s for you to help you minimise your energy use and maximise your savings in both money and in carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

To access this great resource put your name and a good email address into that form at the right …. ensure you respond to the request to confirm your details because I don’t want to be spamming anybody…. and they will then begin arriving right to your inbox.

If you have any first hand experiences you would like to share, let me know!

Leave a comment to this or any other post on the blog and help others learn from past mistakes and move into a more comfortable and eco-friendly lifestyle.