Solar Homes
Submitted by: Johnathan Cunnings
Slowly but surely, people’s consciousness are turning green. The
effects of global warming are quickly getting apparent; the
dwindling of the planets natural resources, the increasing
levels of pollutants in the air, and the rising costs of
generating energy. There are, however, solutions to this
problem. More and more people now are considering green energy
to be a viable, self-sustaining energy source. That is why
numerous new houses are being built, and many more old houses
are being turned into solar\homes. But just what is a solar
home?
The Two Types of Solar Homes
A solar home is a house that utilizes the sun’s energy either to
a) use the sun’s natural warmth to regulate the indoor
temperature of the house and to provide natural lighting and b)
harness the sun’s rays to generate clean electricity. There are
generally two types of solar homes, although the most recent
designs are basically a combination, or a hybrid, of the two
types.
Passive Solar Homes
Passive solar homes are the ones who utilize the sun’s natural
energy to regulate indoor temperatures and to provide natural
lighting. The design is fairly simple and does not require a
person to have solar panels and back-up batteries installed in
the house. Their main design features are large windows facing
the south side of the house. Just doing this regulates the
indoor temperature of the house, keeping it cool in summer and
warm in winter. Other design aspects of passive solar homes are
better insulation, to keep the warmth in, and special windows
that don’t allow that much heat exchange between the interior
and exterior of the house. One great benefit the owners of
passive solar homes get is the wide open spaces, especially on
the south side of the house.
Active Solar Homes
Active solar homes, on the other hand, use the sun’s natural
energy to generate its own power. Designing this kind of house
is a bit more complicated and does require a whole lot of kind
of expensive electronics and equipment. Solar panels, inverters,
back up batteries, are just some of the equipment needed to
convert a house to use purely solar energy. However, the
benefits of having a house generate its own electricity do
outweigh the costs involved.
A Comparison of the Costs and Possible Savings
Building a house that uses solar energy or renovating an
existing house to use solar energy can definitely be costly.
Back when the harnessing of solar energy was in its infancy, the
costs of building a solar-powered house made it impractical. But
the development of the technology and the emergence of new
technologies have made building solar homes cheaper and much
more cost effective.
A recent study of the costs involved in building solar homes, or
to be more accurate, converting existing homes into solar homes,
shows that a person may spend up to $48,000. This figure already
includes material and labor to build a house that can generate
6kW of power, with an 8kW back-up battery system that is enough
to provide the house uninterrupted power for 3 days.
Given that the average American household will spend an average
of $6,000 a year for electricity bills, it will only take a
little over seven years for people to get their investment back.
After that, the house’s electricity is free for life.
An added benefit of solar homes is that during peak sun hours,
the house can generate so much electricity that it can feed
power into the grid. This means that not only does the house use
free electricity; it earns money by giving its excess power to
the power company.
With today’s technology, going “green” doesn’t mean people will
have to learn to live in wood burning cabins just to have heat.
The costs of building a solar home has significantly gone down.
It wouldn’t be a surprise to see solar homes to be a standard in
the near future.
About the Author: If you are looking for information on solar
home click on the link. Or you can visit
http://lifestylesecretreview.com/ for more information.
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