Why Do So Few People Take Advantage of Passive Solar Today?

 This is a fascinating question I cannot attempt to answer here. One reason may be that glass enthusiastically installed on houses for winter in the 1970s and ‘80s overheated thehouses in summer and, even though excellent thermal shades were installed later, heat creeps by these. Much of the glass is in front of Trombe walls where there is no room for shades in winter.

Vines or trees are good at Summer shading, but the bare branches that shade in winter take a great toll on passive performance.

Interesting Geometries

In the 1970s Bill Mingenbach

designed and installed some very

 interesting reflector/shades that

performed well and should be re-

fined. (Fig.13)                                     

Fig. 13

In winter (W) the reflector is set at an angle to reflect   the sun down into the room.  In summer (S) position it swings out to reflect the sun up, away from the glass.

The prolific solar inventor William Shurcliff also proposed to me an excellent variation on the drumwall or Trombe wall reflector/shade design. (Fig.14a and Fig.14b)  Shurcliff’s design invited use of the summer shade in front of the glass in summer.  This is another method that needs to be tried and refined.

Figures 14a and 14b

Reflectors Take Valuable Space

Reflectors lowered to the ground take up space; though it is possible one could put chairs and tables on rugged reflectors in winter to enjoy the sun.  Other devices also consume space, such as driveways, roads, parking spaces and turn-around space for cars.

Simple effective uses of the sun may have to show in the design of the houses.

About Comfort

Machine comfort is easy to define.  A limited range of temperature and humidity brackets what ASHRAE, for instance, defines as comfort.  Extensive studies have been done.  I am puzzled to find for myself, the only person whose comfort I have first hand knowledge of, that I am not comfortable being comfortable.  I like a year during which I am uncomfortably hot for hours on end.  When hot I always seek the coolest spot I can find to work, rest or sleep, but somehow I relish conditions in which I fail to succeed in these comfort searches.

So, while I enjoy spending my years looking for ever better ways to passively heat and cool buildings, I like circumstances that drive me to feel too hot and too cold.  I like to touch the weather and the climate right through my house.  The discomfort of being too hot or too cold has compensating rewards for me. If you carry a thermometer with you, as I do, you will find most people don’t mind enduring temperatures outside the comfort zone, but few are ready to admit this. Enduring is easier than admitting.

The discomfort (irritation says it better) of unpleasant drafts as from air ducts, or noises such as motor noises, or smells as from furnaces, or the frustration of power failure and equipment breakdown, have no compensating rewards I can think of.  This is why I like passive systems and being outside.

In passive heating and cooling it is much more difficult to bracket temperatures between 78^o F and 68^o F than, for instance between 86^oF and 60^oF. To how much trouble would I go to ensure that I am always “comfortable” rather than accept being frequently uncomfortable?  Not much.

At Zomeworks we are developing an inconspicuous and very effective way to passively heat and cool. No noise, no drafts, one merely turns a few valves as seasons change.  It is almost too good to be true, and maybe that isn’t all for the good.

Reflector/shades, interior thermal mass and night ventilation are very dramatic and that, for me, makes them an all the more successful way to passively heat and cool buildings in Albuquerque and most of New Mexico.