Heating and cooling energy in houses 

Solar houses were bred back in the late1960's to check the energy crisis.  Sadly this concern for energy saving became an all consuming passion and we forgot just about everything that was achieved.

Solar houses are nothing more than houses that are designed to be naturally comfortable.  they avoid artificial heating and cooling.   So they avoid wasting resources Comfortable living conditions are acquired by using natural climatic resources like the sun, cool breezes and cool night temperatures. And these preferred conditions are set in place prior to the time when discomfort would ordinarily develop.  It follows that these houses do not treat discomfort at all, they simply avoid it.   The method may be summed up like this.

Recognise the solution and that major benefits can be obtained.
Heating and cooling our homes can be avoided , at least in some measure

Make a conscious choice to use natural and renewable resources
That choice concerns the nature of what is built, so proper design is vital.

Natural heating and cooling avoids nuisance and expense.
A house so designed will procure desirable temperatures (or mostly) hours in advance of the ordinary need turn on heating and cooling.

Use backup energy to offset natural resource deficiencies, not design deficiencies 
Energy found necessary for heating and cooling subsequently, due to factors beyond the designer’s control is legitimate. (provided it is used efficiently)

Avoid energy waste, pollution and expense
Where natural resources make this process feasible but no attempt is made to secure it, energy consumed artificially is wasted.

So long as we believe that naturally comfortable houses are just another way to reduce energy consumption, like insulation, or double-glazing, we will keep believing that all space heating and cooling energy is used legitimately.

It follows that when energy is the sole benchmark, we have no way of separating those houses that avoid discomfort naturally from those that require regular temperature correction.  

And that is where we make a most tragic error. 

Without that distinction there is absolutely no incentive to substitute natural renewable energy to prevent waste.   And so we convince ourselves that discomfort is unavoidable and present methods of treating it are acceptable.

And guess what.   Point number 5 (above) survives because of it.   Whilst ever discomfort is thought to be inevitable we will go on wasting energy and polluting the planet to alter temperatures needlessly.    Meanwhile each new house owner will begin paying out of their pocket for years to come while the rest of humanity suffers from someone's wilful negligence. 

But that's enough on this subject here.  You will however understand why we design comfortable houses and nothing less!

You can learn much more about comfortable living and using natural resources for heating and cooling in our publications

You can study the looming energy crisis here

 

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