# Where to start? Passive solar, solar panels and wind questions



## Yellowmug (Aug 7, 2012)

The sticky threads have been helpful but I am still trying to understand a few things and wondering if anyone has ideas or can point me in the right direction for resources. We have a small homestead (7 acres) with a small old barn, a large pole barn, a standard ranch house 1400sq ft, plus soon to be finished basement. The house is situated exactly wrong for passive solar design--it has gorgeous views of the rising sun from the kitchen and back porch, and lovely sunsets over the mountains from the living room and front porch but the south side has 2 dinky bedroom windows and the walkout basement door. Sad. 

Anyway, we do not plan to be off grid but we would like to reduce energy consumption generally. We are entertaining the idea of adding a sunspace but I've read these are often not very efficient. If we added a glassed in sunroom where the back porch is, regular roof with deep overhangs and maybe stone floors, one wall would face due south. I don't think it would do much but it would be a nice space. I would also like to add solar panels at some point, but I think that area of roof probably would not be large enough (the sunroom would probably be about 12-14 feet long)? I would like to plant some trees on the south side of the house but I am afraid I would mess up our chances for solar power. The other option (I think?) is to run panels from our pasture which is open and sunny and on the south side of the house. The pasture starts about 30 feet from that side of the house so from what I've read that is not that far away but maybe less than ideal? 

We are also in sort of a wind tunnel and we have thought about planting some trees for a windscreen but it would block our view of the mountains. Now I'm thinking we might take advantage of the wind by being evaluated for wind power, but I'm guessing what we think of as windy really isn't...

Finally, about solar power, a couple of the links mention having a generator and charging the batteries when it hasn't been very sunny. Is this necessary for the batteries or is this something you only do if you are relying on the solar power?


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## JohnP (Sep 1, 2010)

Go to the library and look for solar. You'll find books on passive solar and active solar. Also look for green building. A good website for lots of ideas is builditsolar.com The guy that owns the site is a member here also. 

Don't know if you're on the north or south end of the appalachins or in the middle and that would make a difference. 

Keeping cool is harder than keeping warm. When we build, I plan on situating our house slightly SE rather than South. With your kitchen facing east you could do the solar greenhouse/sunroom off the kitchen to get morning gain. If done right with one wall east and one south it _would_ help. You could use solar heaters for the south facing bedrooms. (see builditsolar) 
Planting deciduous trees (trees that lose their leaves in the fall) on the south fairly close to the house would shade the south side of the house in summer but let sun through in winter. 
The distance for solar panels depends on the system voltage. 12, 24, 48 volts DC are standard and the higher volts are conducive to longer distances without voltage losses or having to use very heavy wiring. Higher voltage like 48vdc is better for inverting to 120vac (house voltage) anyway. 
Wind power is one of the least cost effective of all alternative energy. In fact, they say every dollar spent reducing energy is the same as 5 dollars spent producing energy. So before looking into alternative energy, insulate, buy energy efficient appliances, windows etc. All the energy reduction items can be written off on taxes like AE can.


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

BuildItSolar: Solar energy projects for Do It Yourselfers to save money and reduce pollution is a great site and Gary is a participating member here.
Permies: a big crowd of permaculture goofballs is another good site for sustainability and Pauls a regular poster as well on the boards.
Otherpower | Make Your Electricity From Scratch! is a good site as well.

From there you can hit Google and Youtube and expand on the Ideas that intrigue you.
You just need to familiarize your self with the jargon used in these circles. then you can dig up lots of stuff.


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,
I like sunspaces a lot for solar heating and all the other benefits they provide, but they work much better when facing south, so it may not work out too well for your as a house heating scheme.

If you do decide to do a sunspace and want to maximize its house heating capability, this is a good article to read: PolySpace
and more on sunspaces here: Solar Sunspaces and Greenhouses
The thing I like about sunspaces is they are efficient heaters, but they also give you some extra space and a sheltered place to hang the wash and grow plants.

I think you are on the right track on wanting to work on efficiency and conservation -- even with lower PV costs, its much more cost effective to get your usage down first. We cut our consumption in half with this program: The Half Project -- reduce energy consumption and green house gas emissions by half pretty straight forward stuff. Your best projects will probably be different, but the approach is the same.

30 ft from the house is not really a problem for either PV or solar thermal collectors. Mine are more like 80 ft.

With your heavy east and west exposures, do you get a lot of overheating in the summer?

Gary


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

My house is well shaded including the roof and this summer when it hit 96 my house never got above 83 and it's not very well insulated.

I think I would put in shade and put my solar hot air collectors further out and earth tubes for cooling.


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## Yellowmug (Aug 7, 2012)

Thank you so much, the links look really helpful. 

"With your heavy east and west exposures, do you get a lot of overheating in the summer?"
Not as much as I thought we would. The east side has two standard size windows, one double window in the dining area open to the kitchen which has double glass doors out to the patio. Beside the glass doors there is a huge wysteria that provides some shade, but mostly it grows all over the house and roof so we are trying to think of what to plant there to make it a better sunblock. Off those doors is where we would like to put the sunspace, with glass on three sides (north, east and south) and a solid roof. 

The west side of the house has more windows and the front door but also has a decent porch with a nice overhang. When the sun is setting I open only the tops of the windows because they stay shaded. I think I need shutters or something for the bottom. 

We are at an elevation of 2500 feet and we are located on a hill, so we get a good breeze most days. Our A/C was on probably 25 days or so this summer, set at 78, we are very fortunate.


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