The sun is extremely powerful. Obviously, it is the basis of all life on our planet. A lot of people do not understand just how much energy is contained in sunlight. For instance, how many times have you left a vehicle in a parking lot only to come back and find it blazing hot inside? This is passive solar at its best. The sunlight penetrates through the windows and heats up the interior of the automobile. Now you understand passive solar and, ironically, one of the potential troubles with it.
When it comes to passive solar heating in a house, it can work too well. Regardless of whether you are intentionally or unintentionally pursuing passive solar, you know how hot a house can get. During the summer, it can be downright severe. There are, however, easy actions you can take to alleviate this issue.
The first problem has to do with intrusion. Put simply, too much sun is penetrating into your house. You already know the answer from a common sense point of view, shading. In this case, you have to pull the shades over windows on the south facing side of your home. In the northern hemisphere, the south side of your house will always get the most sun. If you do not want to put shades up, close the door to the room in question to cut off the heat flow. You can open it later on in the evening when things start getting cooler, and you could use a bit of heat.
If you are intentionally designing for passive solar, there is a landscaping trick you can do to maximize passive solar production in winter, however, limit it in summer. In this case, we are talking about trees. Specifically, you ought to plant trees that grow a heavy leaf canopy in the summer, but lose all their leaves in the winter. Put in front of large windows, these trees will function as a natural temperature regulator for your passive solar system Heating And Cooling Tucson AZ .