Solar Energy Home Tour

A preview to our local field trip

Types of Solar Homes

•Active Solar•Active Solar Electricity

•Active Solar Heat

•Passive Solar

Active Solar Electricity

• Photovoltaic Cells (solar panels) use the sun’s energy to create electricity which can be used or stored in batteries

Active Solar Electric

Active Solar Electric

• power converters and Battery storage systems are required with photovoltaic cells

Active Solar Air and Water Heat

• Solar panels allow sunshine in, warming the water that travels through copper pipes in the panels. The warmed water can be used for multiple purposes.

Active Solar Water

To preheat water used in the house so that the water heater does not have to work so hard

Active Solar Heat

–Convection heating in cement/tile floors

Active Solar Heat

• Both Active Solar electricity and water systems can be used in a home.

Passive Solar Homes

• Extra long overhangs on a roof provide shade to the house in the summer when the Sun’s angel is high, and direct Sun to the house in the winter with the angle is low.

Passive Solar Homes

• Windows facing south allow sunshine in all year round.

• Fewer windows on the North and West sides of the house where no direct sunlight hits, and most bad weather comes from that direction.

Passive Solar Homes

• Passive lighting reduces the need for electricity

Passive Solar Homes

• Earth berms around the North and West sides of the house. The ground is an insulator, staying at about 55ºF all year. In the summer this cools the house, and in the winter this is warmer than the outside air temperature

Passive Solar Homes

• Straw Bale Homes

Passive Solar Homes

• Providing air venting in and around a house for convection heating

Passive Solar Homes

• Rammed Earth walls are interior and exterior wall that are better insulators using heat absorbing rock and sand. These walls retain heat better than drywall and therefore have less need for a heater to run in the winter.