Saturday, November 10, 2012

Passive Solar Works

It's been a long time since I posted here, but we've been busy enjoying our new green home!  Here is an illustration of why we did this.  This morning I wandered back into the bedroom to discover this inviting image.  I laid back down on the bed and was warmed by the rays and reminded of how effective good passive solar design can be.  It's 8:30 AM on a crisp November morning.  It's 39 degrees outside but a comfortable 69 and climbing inside.  The heat pump came on at about 5:30 AM but has already reached the setpoint and turned itself off; letting the sun do its thing.  The sun streaming through our 175 sq ft of southern facing low e, Argon filled glass is all the heat we'll need until late this evening!

I plan someday to graph our energy use and post the data.  The short version, however, is "it's all good". We are pretty conservative with our heat and cool settings, and so never had the highest bills you've heard of.  Still, even compared to OUR modest heating and cooling bills of our past homes, this house ROCKS. Our heat is All electric (and solar). Through two summers and last winter, our HIGHEST electric bill was $131/mo.  We have 3400 sq ft, and can heat it for merely $131 in the coldest month all year long.  I love it!

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