Solar heating is a great way for the average home to lower their energy bills by using the sun to help heat their home. This technology has been available for residential applications for years and has only recently begun to gain a wider acceptance among homeowners. Even though it has been widely used in other countries, homeowners in the United States have just started to understand the financial and environmental benefits of solar heating.
Solar heating is a term used for a variety of systems that can be used to heat and even cool the average home. These systems are typically either a passive style that uses features of the home to take advantage of solar heating, or active systems that use specialized equipment to harvest the suns energy. Both of these technologies have their benefits and the best designs use elements of both to accomplish the goal of heating your home. Most passive systems are designed into new construction of homes and include large windows that face south in the home. These larger windows allow sunlight to penetrate deep into the home and heat the floors and walls naturally. This heat can then be released slowly later that evening when the sun has set and the home needs to be heated. These windows will also have blinds or shades that can be used to control how much heat enters the home and help regulate the temperature.
Active systems will incorporate some type of solar collector that is usually mounted on the roof of the home for adequate sun exposure. This solar collector can either be used to heat the war air used in the home directly, or is more commonly used to heat a liquid that then transfers this heat to the home in various ways. This liquid is usually a specialized liquid that can transport the heat it receives from the solar collector to the home with very little loss. It is also not affected by cold temperatures and wont freeze in the winter months. As this liquid passes through the solar collector, it is heated by the sun and this hot liquid is then used in the home.
The advantage to using a system based on liquid is that you can use the heat it carries for several things. Most of these solar heating systems will pass this hot liquid through a thermal holding tank that will act as a reservoir to distribute this heat throughout the night when needed. It will also be able to transfer some of this heat to the water in your home so you can eliminate your conventional hot water heater with one of these
solar heating systems and save even more money each month on energy. The way these solar heating systems help to heat your home is by slowly passing this heated liquid through pipes located in the floors and walls of your home that will then transfer this heat to various rooms naturally. These systems do a great job of heating any home and can help you significantly reduce your energy bills each month as you use the free energy the sun provides everyday as simple sunlight.
