Switch to solar with a system built for you. Solar water heaters work by absorbing sunlight in solar collectors and saving the heated water in a storage tank. Both active and passive solar water ...

Do you enjoy coming home to a warm home in the dead of winter? Do you leave your furnace running in cold weather even if no one’s home? If you want to keep the house warm for when you return later in ...

SOLAR HOT WATER pre-heat systems fall into two basic categories active and passive types with numerous subcategories. A passive solar DHW pre-heater is also known as a breadbox heater or batch heater.

Dear Jim: I want to become more green and my children are all for it. From what I have read, using a solar water heater makes the most sense. I don't have much money for one. How can we build a simple ...

Switch to solar with a system built for you. There isn’t a strict definition for what makes a home "solar" — it just has to use energy from the sun in some capacity. If you’re building a new home, it ...

Transpired solar air collector technology, developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) back in the 1990s, recently found its way back home and is ...

A passive solar house is typically designed from scratch factoring in several considerations to boost the structure’s ability to naturally keep the interior living spaces a comfortable air temperature ...

A nice hot shower can be an invigorating way to start your morning or the perfect end to a long day. Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy those hot showers without having to worry about wasting energy or ...

Passive cooling is a key element of a larger strategy known as natural conditioning — heating, cooling, ventilating and lighting a building naturally, that is, without mechanical or electronic devices ...

Jim Gagnepain calls it “the little bermed house on the prairie.” He and his wife, Stephanie, built their retirement home in eastern El Paso County. Jim, who has a background in electrical engineering, ...

Sonya Newenhouse’s Wisconsin-based, 968-square-foot passive solar home is 80 percent more energy-efficient than the average U.S. home. Building a home with near-zero winter heating costs may sound ...