17 Apr 2011

Solar Heating and Your UK Home

Photovoltaic power, radiant warmth and heat from the sun, has long been used by man kind since historical days employing a wide variety of always changing technology.

Say Hello to the Power of the sun

Photo voltaic driven electrical development relies on heat engines and photovoltaics. Solar energy's uses are confined only by individual creativity. A short list of solar applications includes room heating and cooling through solar architecture, potable h2o via distillation and disinfection, daylighting, solar hot h2o, solar cooking, and high temperature process heat for industrial reasons. To harvest the photo voltaic energy, by far the most popular technique is to implement solar panels.

Solar technologies are often characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the technique used to capture, change and distribute solar power. Current solar strategies consist of the use of solar panels and photovoltaic thermal collectors to harness the power. Passive solar techniques involve orienting a home towards the Sun, choosing materials with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing qualities, and creating areas which naturally circulate air.Active solar heating refers to mechanically powered heating systems which employ energy from the sun as the fuel base. These may also be utilised in combination with passive solar heating measures, for example putting substantial windows on south-facing walls, to reduce or perhaps remove the desire for typical heating techniques that call for fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and propane to operate. Active solar heating applications could be not cheap to set up but are normally low-maintenance, and the fuel supply, the power from the sun, is totally free. Fossil fuels will only increase in price as the supply drops and demand raises.

Producing hot water for use in showers, baths and hot taps accounts for a substantial proportion of the total domestic electrical power consumption. Under UK circumstances, a home can easily supply approximately fifty percent of the hot water it would like through the course of a 12 month period from solar energy.

Finding Solar Heat

Solar heat is essentially free power for anybody’s household in wintertime. There are a variety of ways of capturing it.

There are two methods to harness solar heating for a home. They are passive and active solar heating.

Passive solar heating doesn't involve external units or mechanical equipment. This really is simply just the act of permitting your property to acquire more solar radiation during the winter weather.

For anyone who is constructing a brand new residence and if it is doable to orient and design your house so that you've rooms with windows that capture the low angle photo voltaic heat throughout the wintertime, but is also blocked from summer sun. Such passive solar heating, combined with sensible insulation, can mean more than 50 percent of your home's wintertime heating needs.

Attempt to maximize solar heat gain in the winter season by eliminating evergreen trees that don't loose their leaves and planting deciduous trees such as maple and oak that loose their leaves in the course of winter. They are able to shade the home from the summer months and permit more sun to hit your home in winter when they loose their foliage.

Change the color of your home. Should you reside in a mainly cold climate consider painting your house a couple of hues darker. Darker paints mean additional solar heat retention.

Find out about the kinds of active solar heating techniques. In terms of active solar heating you will find a number of options. The first may be to set up a big capacity solar hot water heater or possibly a dual system with one side feeding a radiant heating system. Yet another active solar heating option is an outdoors solar air heater. This should be primarily an insulated box having a solar powered fan that you position on a sunny position outside your wall. As soon as the sun is shining, warm air is made and fed into the household through a duct.

In excess of 70% of the average household’s power use goes into space and water heating, so a source of free hot water to make use of instead of commercial electrical power tends to make a substancial monetary saving.

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