Snug-a-Bug Solar and Traditional Homes

Solar

Solar Homes often have a negative connotation in that one thinks of a jumble of pipes and wires on the roof. When solar power is taken into account at the beginning of the design process, it can be incorporated into the home without looking like an after thought.

Solar heating consists of both passive and active systems.

These two homes have both elements. The home shown above was built in 1979 and uses a solar attic to collect hot air for heat and has a water heating system as well.

The home shown on the bottom was built in 1987 and has panels on the roof to heat water for both domestic use and for a three level under floor radiant heating system.

These photos, when compared, illustrate the ability of a properly sized overhang on a south facing roof to keep the room shaded in summer and sunny in winter.

This sunroom addition was added to a 100 year old colonial home in Ludlow and was done paying attention to the original style. Rather than looking like some thing tacked to the side of this home, this room adds character to the exterior and brings the sun into the interior.Can you imagine yourself relaxing in this wonderful spa at the end of your work day?

This expansion of the living space created a bright area and easy access to a new deck and the back yard. Again, we matched the sunroom addition to the style of home we were adding to. These rooms add warmth to the house literally as well as figuratively and are a good example of passive solar heating.

This is a sunroom addition on a ranch commonly found in our area, the interior of which creates a space that's anything but common.A bright room like this is the room every one gravitates to, and quickly becomes your favorite room.

These homes were retro fitted with solar backpass collectors. They are a very basic system whereby air is heated behind glass and circulated through the house. They are very efficient as they only work when the panels are warm enough. This is automatically determined with modern controls and requires little maintenance. Both of the systems depicted are 20 years old and still functioning.

These photos show a Trombe Wall used in this passive solar home. A simple design that utilizes the suns energy to heat a block wall that slowly radiates heat to the inside. On the inside of the home this wall is stone, brick or stucco. This wall will run cooler in summer due to the high angle of the sun and large vents allowing heat to vent out.

This photo shows a contemporary Viessmann vacuum tube solar collector mounted to a detached structure. These tubes heat a storage tank in the house via under ground piping that provides solar domestic hot water and augments the homes base board hot water heating system. In the summer, excess heat is dumped into the swimming pool to assist a fossil fuel burning pool heating system.

These photos below are examples of our own custom site built solar hot water systems installed to not only heat water but to address problems with big company systems.

The collector array of three or more panels, having been fabricated into a single unit, reduces the heat loss on the sides and eliminates the heat lost with exposed piping between each collector since the absorber plates are connected directly to each other within the panel. We are not locked into a single manufacturer which enables us to put together the best components and use the better systems and controls.