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re: passive solar; reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources
25 nov 1996
joel n. gordes wrote:
>most of the advanatge of a properly designed solar home comes from a
>high insulation value in the celing, floors, and walls as well as use
>of new low e glass in the windows. the actual solar helps but the
>order of importance is insulation, orientation and fenestration...
this sounds like a direct gain house, which works well in the southwest but
not so well in connecticut. seems to me that a much more efficient and less
expensive configuration in the northeast is some sort of low-thermal-mass
and sunspace with low-thermal-resistance glazing, that gets cold at night,
combined with some thermal mass inside the well-insulated attached house.
>i've had the pleasure to design/analyze over 250 passive solar homes.
>they work well when done with common sense.
it seems to me that it's time to recalibrate our performance expectations
for passive solar houses, and design and expect them to provide 90-100% of
their heat and hot water from the sun, in the northeast, vs 30-80%...
nick
nicholson l. pine system design and consulting
pine associates, ltd. (610) 489-0545
821 collegeville road fax: (610) 489-7057
collegeville, pa 19426 email: nick@ece.vill.edu
computer simulation and modeling. high performance, low cost, solar heating and
cogeneration system design. bsee, msee. senior member, ieee. registered us
patent agent. solar closet paper: http://leia.ursinus.edu/~physics/solar.html
web site: http://www.ece.vill.edu/~nick
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