Sustainable Design Update

Tip #1 in the weekly series - Design a Passive Solar Home

Every site on the planet has sunlight. Even if your site is overcast a lot of the time, you should design around where the sun is, where it rises and where it sets.

There are lots of online solar angle calculators that will help you figure out how to design the overhanging roof or trellis that will protect a window from too much sunlight in warmer weather. One site that I use is Sustainable By Design’s Sun Angle.

Passive solar homes connect the indoor environment with the outdoors. You can feel the sun travel across the sky during the day and you can tell what season you are in by where the sun falls within your home.

Passive solar design is essentially free. It just takes a bit of effort to know where the sun will be and how it will influence life inside your home.

Next Monday: Insulate - Insulate - Insulate!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 6:23 pm and is filed under Energy, Green Building Materials, Sustainability, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.