Good article thanks. One question- are eaves not a good and useful thing? The old villas here in NZ were built with eaves to shade windows from the sun (occasionally oriented incorrectly to a Northern aspect due to confused Northern hemisphere immigrants). We did the same thing with our (otherwise relatively simple and boxy 2 storey) home to help shade the north and west facing windows. It's not perfect, but it does make a difference.
It’s complicated. In Scotland, they don’t have roof overhangs because the wind would blow off the roofs. In classic solar design, you carefully do the overhangs to shade windows in summer. I think the best title I ever wrote was “all about eaves” where I looked at the contradictions. https://www.treehugger.com/all-about-eaves-4858229
Good article, glad someone is saying this, but not enough people are listening. Colorado is an example of things that are wrong with house building. It's grotesque in many areas. With the natural sunlight, it's possible to get a lot of passive heating, and don't forget solar thermal panels--you can heat water and run the hot water thru the floors or into radiators--thus getting the sun's energy cheaply and without needing PV wiring.
PV wiring is an order of magnitude simpler than plumbing roofs. If the wiring has problems you go and fix it; if the plumbing has problem then you'd better hope your house isn't a flooded, moldy mess.
Leave passive solar and solar thermal in the 1970s where they belong. Size windows for aesthetics, not heating, and use solar PV to drive heat pumps.
An interesting point, thanks. But it sounds like an engineering problem that can be solved. Also, solar PV can augment and/or replace hot water heaters. You could design a type of radiator for hot water heating, and run the solar-heated water in simplified plumbing to these radiators, perhaps.
At that point it's probably just simpler to set up an air-to-water heat pump system with a tank serving fan coil units in each room. If you're doing hydronic heating might as well do hydronic air conditioning too.
Good article thanks. One question- are eaves not a good and useful thing? The old villas here in NZ were built with eaves to shade windows from the sun (occasionally oriented incorrectly to a Northern aspect due to confused Northern hemisphere immigrants). We did the same thing with our (otherwise relatively simple and boxy 2 storey) home to help shade the north and west facing windows. It's not perfect, but it does make a difference.
It’s complicated. In Scotland, they don’t have roof overhangs because the wind would blow off the roofs. In classic solar design, you carefully do the overhangs to shade windows in summer. I think the best title I ever wrote was “all about eaves” where I looked at the contradictions. https://www.treehugger.com/all-about-eaves-4858229
In areas prone to wildfire you want to avoid anything that might harbor a blown in burning brand
Good article, glad someone is saying this, but not enough people are listening. Colorado is an example of things that are wrong with house building. It's grotesque in many areas. With the natural sunlight, it's possible to get a lot of passive heating, and don't forget solar thermal panels--you can heat water and run the hot water thru the floors or into radiators--thus getting the sun's energy cheaply and without needing PV wiring.
PV wiring is an order of magnitude simpler than plumbing roofs. If the wiring has problems you go and fix it; if the plumbing has problem then you'd better hope your house isn't a flooded, moldy mess.
Leave passive solar and solar thermal in the 1970s where they belong. Size windows for aesthetics, not heating, and use solar PV to drive heat pumps.
An interesting point, thanks. But it sounds like an engineering problem that can be solved. Also, solar PV can augment and/or replace hot water heaters. You could design a type of radiator for hot water heating, and run the solar-heated water in simplified plumbing to these radiators, perhaps.
At that point it's probably just simpler to set up an air-to-water heat pump system with a tank serving fan coil units in each room. If you're doing hydronic heating might as well do hydronic air conditioning too.