Solar

Solar energy is a key ingredient to satisfy reasonable energy needs. As a society, not only do we need to be using renewable energy, we need to be rather deliberate about choosing what makes sense to provide energy for. Having our affluence cake and eating it too is not a likely long term scenario.

My place is sunny. The back yard is on the south side of the house. Twenty or so years ago, the owner of the house had the sense to cover the sizable patio and turn it into a sun room. Some 37 feet of glass wall, mostly south but 12 feet to the west. This is a remarkable space. It has only modest insulation in the ceiling. Windows are single pane, older window and door. Still, the low temp inside since I have moved here has not been bellow 40 degrees even with outside lows near 20.

On sunny winter days outside with temps in the mid 40's, inside is a comfortable mid 60's. I will use electric fans to circulate the milder air into the rest of the house. This does have a modest affect, depending on the day's weather. In mid winter at its best, the sun room provides only moderation to the rest of the house as I do not heat the kitchen or living room. Still, a sweatshirt is an important companion to reducing reliance on conventional heating. When I do rebuild the sun room, it will have partial clear ceiling and double pane windows.

The virtues of a sun room are difficult to overstate. This is a light, open space, home to many not native plants in the winter time. I start early veges in the sunroom. It is a great space to hangout. Because of the roof overhang, it does not heat up excessively in the summer time. My recommendation is for anyone who has an appropriate south facing wall to consider building on a sun room of whatever size works.

My first project when I moved in was to hire a friend and help him convert my car port into a living space. We re framed the west side windows with lots of glass. We cut through the south end of the car port and installed an 8 foot sliding glass, double pane door. The 12 foot south wall is 90% glass with a wonderful view to the back yard water feature. Sunny days, even in the winter time, provide a very appreciable amount of heat via the south wall into this space, even though it is 350 square feet in floor space. Its great to see the thermometer rise from, say 53 on a January day to near 70 over a period of a few hours. Even mostly cloudy days receive a boost.

I also have a solar hot water heater thanks to our much better than average public utility, EWEB. They offer hard to pass up programs for all kinds of energy saving schemes in addition to solar. My double collector/glycol system ran $3500. EWEB provided an immediate $600 kickback. The state allows a $1500 tax credit [not a deduction but a credit]. EWEB also provides a no interest 5 year loan. With increasing electricity, my system will pay for itself in 5 or 6 years. I am very please with it. I turn off the electric water heater in mid April and it stays off untill early November. Certainly a few cloudy days when the water is not quite hot but its fun to set new records for longest solar water season without electricity.

In the garden, solar is prominent with the coldframes. Have a look at that page. The longer the growing season and more food grown over a longer period, the less needs to be stored or bought. Cold frames are great!

The Bungalow Project contains a variety of solar and energy saving elements. The Bungalow's "Rustic-Contemporary" design deserves its own page so here is the link.

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