Solar Heating Plan for Any Home

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/2007-12-01/Solar-Heating-Plan-for-Any-Home.aspx

Solar Heating Plan for Any Home

By Gary Reysa

It’s time to take advantage of solar heat to reduce your dependence on fossil fuels and lower your heating bills. This simple, yet effective, system can be utilized in almost any home. Because the solar collectors and the heat storage tank for the system are built into a small new outbuilding, you don’t need to completely remodel your home to use solar heat. On sunny days (or even partly sunny days) the collectors add heat to the storage tank. When the house needs heat, hot water from the storage tank is transferred to the house via an underground pipe into a radiant floor heating system. (See illustration in the Image Gallery.) The new building that houses our collectors is a storage shed, but yours could be a studio, playhouse or workshop.

Advantages of This Approach

• The collectors are mounted at ground level, where they are easy to build and maintain.
• The collectors can be oriented and tilted for maximum solar collection.
• The collectors and the building can share a structure in such a way that the material costs and time to build are reduced for both the collectors and the shed.
• The collectors look good integrated with the shed (see photo, Image Gallery).
• You don’t have to find a space for a large thermal storage tank in the house.
• The steeply tilted or vertical collectors located close to the ground benefit from light reflected off the ground, particularly when the ground is snow covered. And, vertical or near vertical collectors are less prone to overheating in the summer.

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