Our Portfolio
Passive solar buildings have been the workhorses of the solar industry for decades. They have produced millions of dollars worth of heat energy and yet the passive solar industry receives little attention. Unlike active solar systems, photovoltaics and other solar technologies that are defined by products and manufacturers, passive solar is the assembly of mostly common building materials in a way that allows a building to take advantage of its' relationship with the sun. There are manufacturers that produce passive solar specific products that improve collection, storage or distribution, but the majority of passive solar materials are provided by the conventional building industry (bricks, concrete, glazing, lumber, etc.).
The capabilities of a passive solar building rely on the correct selection and installation of the components that make up the passive solar heating system. We have spent thousands of hours reviewing and testing the materials that we include in our designs. Passive solar windows provide an excellent example of a product that requires specific characteristics to maximize solar performance. The glazing industry has addressed the need for different types glass and coatings for solar gain applications and continues to improve the availability of passive solar glass. This design choice alone, can increase the efficiency of a passive solar "system" by over forty percent!! Pilkington glass offers the Energy Advantage line which uses fourth surface, pyrolytic low-e coating, giving it a Solar Heat Gain Coefficient of 65% and a U-value of .23. Cardinal glass has developed the Low-e 180 line which has a SHGC of 69% and a U-value of .28.
These properties will determine the overall performance of your passive solar heating system, but are not typically an item that is available "off the shelf". We make sure that your passive solar system is built with the most efficient and cost effective materials that are available.
Computer aided energy modeling allows us to predict and compare energy performance based on choices of materials and changes in design. This tool allows us to fine tune the design of passive solar homes and present options and consequences to our clients. With a growing number of building energy analysis tools, now available, we began to take a hard look at which of these most accurately represented the actual performance of single family passive solar homes. We designed and installed building monitoring equipment to verify the accuracy of our energy use models and compared our results with the predictions made by other energy modeling software. The results of this study are being published in a white paper that addresses this design process.
Our building energy performance monitoring equipment can be used to identify the actual heat loss characteristics of a building, giving us a benchmark used to compare the effectiveness of energy efficiency improvements to the building envelope or heating system. You can find out more about this service by emailing us: solardesign
Computer aided shading analysis allows us to evaluate the ability of fixed shading features in preventing unwanted solar gain during the summer months. It also lets us demonstrate the impact of building orientation, shading from adjacent buildings and trees. The following video examples have been exported from Revit Architecture, to help illustrate the shading path during the summer solstice and winter solstice. These are the days that require the most shading and the least shading.
Our Ideas
A heat load analysis is an important part of sustainable design. Complex design and engineering programs provide an accurate tool for predicting energy use. Of course, the results are only as accurate as the information that goes into the analysis. We have been using HOT2000 since 1985. Our results have been typically measured to be within 5% of actual energy use. As energy codes evolve, compliance by this performance analysis can be a very cost effective tool.
Passive solar done right