PROJECT PASSIVE SOLAR

Hello and good evening city council, we are Heat Team A. I am Dr Querticious Peff-Puff, the engineer/architect in our team. These are my teammates: Dr Ivana Huggatree, our environmental scientist/human rights advocate and dr Yzarc Leets, the team physicist. We have chosen to talk to you about Project Passive Solar.
Project Passive Solar involves making the most of free energy from the sun and the insulating power of the earth to keep our house warm in winter. This will reduce energy use and energy costs and it will cut down on production of greenhouse gases and help stop climate change.
In our design the house is oriented so that large windows face south while the north side of the house is built into an earth bank or hill. First we will talk about the landscaping that provides the shelter on the north side of the house then we will talk about the windows on the south side of the house.
During our research for Project Passive Solar we read about houses that are built into earth banks to take advantage of the insulating power of the earth. We decided to test out this idea. We designed an experiment to test the insulating power of soil and discovered that soil was a better insulator than a commercially available insulator called cellulose.
Because of the results of our experiment we decided to make use of this idea. For our house we will choose a lot that already has a hill or earth bank. If necessary we will build an earth bank on the lot.
An unprotected home looses much more heat on a cold, windy day than on an equally cold, still day. The bank and the well-located trees and shrubs that we will plant around our house will intercept the wind and cut heat loss. Infiltration or air leakage can account for as much as one-third of heat loss in some buildings. Cold, outside air flows in through cracks around windows and doors and even through pores in the walls. This produces drafts that may cause you to compensate by raising the thermostat to unreasonable levels just to maintain a modicum of comfort. Both windbreaks like the bank, and foundation plantings cut down on the penetrating power of the wind. As well as our landscaping we will of course do our best to seal cracks and reduce air leakage.
If we want to use passive solar heating in our houses we have to choos the right windows. We want high solar gain in winter so that we get the radiant energy from the sun to help us heat the house. We also want to reduce as much as possible the transfer of heat back out through the window by the processes of radiation conduction and convection. We have chosen low-e triple glazed argon filled windows. Argon gas cuts down on the transfer of heat out of the house by conduction and convection while low-e coating cuts down on the re-radiation of heat out of the house through the windows. In summer we would need to cover the windows with drapes or blinds so that the house does not get too hot.
We recommend the passive solar design for houses of the future. It makes sense to use the sun’s free energy and the earth’s free insulating power. Thank you