PV Gap

Kristina Said:

Solar - Passive question: If I were building a solar - passive house located at 41N Latitude what angle should?

We Answered:

Lat 41N thats mid to norhern Spain, Nebraska USA, Turkey and others.
If you want heating, it would only be during the winter months, so the sun will be over or near the tropic of capricorn which is about 23S

So, your window (to admit maximum sunlight midwinter) would be best at 26 degrees to vertical. Thats 90-(41+23)

Altitude will make almost no difference, Everest is only 9km high, that difference would be the less than moving your house 9km up the road.

Diane Said:

what is a solar house built out of if built in Brazil? how would it get its energy and water?

We Answered:

A solar house can be made of any type of building materials, traditional or high tech. Energy comes from the sun, charging batteries. That's why it's called a solar house. Other forms of energy could be used to supplement the solar as well.

The water comes from the same source as any other house in the area, municipal supply or wells would be the most common. Remote areas could collect rainwater, or get water from a nearby river or lake.

Norman Said:

Help build a solar powered house please =)!?

We Answered:

You can go to many diff. web sites and get a solar kit to build a small scale solar collector.

Check out BG Micro, Electronics Goldmine, or Frye's you should find what you are looking for. The kits may be to build a solar car or some other such thing, what you want are the panels then you can adapt those to light the lights in the house. Would be really cool and efficient if you made the lighting all LED.

Cheers!

Wade Said:

Is concrete block a suitable building material for walls of a house?

We Answered:

I think some people are missing the point. The thermal mass works as a heat sink, absorbing heat during the day, releasing it at night. And it works during the summer and winter. So the R-value isn't the point. So yes, a good deal of thermal mass there.

I'm no expert. Just fundamental knowledge, so do some more research. If you just fill it with sand, it is a passive system and therefore won't radiate much to the rest of the house. You may want to look at an active system in conjunction with thermal mass. It would consist of hot water heating, the thermal mass would supplement the heating of a boiler. Then you could build on a slab and use radiant floor heating. You have a range of possibilities. For example, you could build a trombe wall. It is an interior masonry wall and acts like a heat sink. It requires special consideration of your region, but so do all solar homes. You need to know the latitude and do some trigonometry to determine the best orientation for sun angle, soffit overhangs, etc, so you maximize solar gain in the winter and minimize gain in the summer.

Also if you use a thermal mass, you insulate the exterior of the thermal mass. Then find a way to keep the heat in during the winter, "vent" the heat out during the winter. (Opps meant vent out during summer)

But just as a material and disregarding design consideration, CMU's are good for thermal mass.

Edit: Some people still aren't getting it. Thermal mass as a heat sink. Of course, masonary doesn't insulate well. That's not the point of a solar home. It's thermal mass. The point is configuring the soffit overhang, so during the summer day when the sun angle is high, the soffit blocks solar gain and the thermal mass absorbs the interior heat, which can be released at night. During the winter the angle of the sun is lower, and now you use solar gain to your advantage, so the thermal mass absorbs the gain and releases back into the house during the night. The very fact that masonary materials have a low R-value is a benefit, not a libility, when it comes to using thermal mass in this manner. But it requires special consideration of the amount of mass, and design criteria. You still have to insulate, but the exterior of the thermal mass.

That is the whole point of a solar home. Using materials and thier properties to minimize use of fuels to heat and cool. As such CMU's are good for the use of thermal mass. Just search "thermal mass construction"

Here's a start:
http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home…

There is ton of information out there.