Heating Your Home With Solar, But Without Panels.
You can use solar energy to heat your home through a concept referred to as gain. While you might associate panel systems with any mention of solar energy, they are not a part of this method. Naturally, this makes the installation a heck of a lot cheaper than going with standard panel systems http://www.bjrefrigeration.com/ .
Solar gain is a concept that has been with us for much of the history of humanity. Earlier civilizations obviously didnt have electricity. To keep structures warmed, they learned to use the heat produced by sunlight. It is fairly humorous when archeologists marvel at the fact that ancient structures are constantly oriented to the sun. If they knew anything about solar gain, they would understand the structures were being used to produce thermal heating through masonry, openings and so on. Regardless, these very early civilizations were the first to develop and implement solar gain heating.
The simplest way to explain solar gain is with a practical example. Assume it is summer time and your auto is parked in the driveway with the windows rolled up. What happens when you open the door to get in? A huge blast of heat comes out. If you have black seats like I do, you also jump around like a fool when you sit down on the black surface. Your auto is hot due to the fact that it has served as a platform for solar gain. The sun came in the windows, heated up the surfaces in the auto, and raised the temperature level. Since many automobiles are badly ventilated, the heat reached excruciating levels due to the fact that it couldnt escape quickly enough. This is solar gain in a nutshell, a methodology that can be applied to your home.
With solar gain heating, the idea is to maximize sun penetration into the home, convert the sunlight into heat, and circulate it through the home.
To accomplish this, one usually puts windows on the south side of the the home to capture as much sunlight as possible. Thermal storage materials, such as masonry, are placed below the windows to capture and save heat for after the sun goes down.
The heat from the sun is circulated throughout your house throughout the day and evening until the saved amount is used up. Yes, it works in winter time. Solar gain is an ancient and highly effective technique for heating your home. If it sounds interesting to you, visit a solar website to discover the specifics.