southern exposure

No I'm not talking about the TV show, or places below the belt. I'm talking about lot selection and house orientation. It is probably the most overlooked and under thought out aspect of house building.

Most people just buy a house without thinking of where the sun shines. When building, they only think about it if it happens to fit into their plans. Rarely does it get adjusted. Houses just get "planted" parallel to the road.

Why does this matter? Well, the sun does not shine on the North side of your house no matter where you live. And the south side is where the sun is highest and hottest; but you already knew that! What I was surprised to find out is that many people don't even know east from west or that the sun rises in the east! The reason this is important, or should be, is that it allows you to maximize solar heat gain through windows, solar collectors or PV cells.

It is commonly known in the window industry that you should have the highest amount of windows on the south side with east for morning light and west for evening light. North, therefore should have the fewest windows if possible. It is also the side that should have the best windows. Triple pane windows are now becoming mainstream with Low-E, argon, or titanium coatings. Some windows have R value exceeding R-7. Not bad for a hole in the side of your house.

If you want to maximize solar heat gain, you you want to maximize the number of windows on the south and south west of the house. If there are areas of the house that have good southern exposure and are not covered with windows, you should consider solar convection heaters or solar water heaters.

Now, you might be saying, "I don't want to maximize heat gain in the summer". Well, you can install high quality windows but most importantly, you should install louvers (pergola style) over your windows that will shade the glass at high noon in summer, but in winter, allows the sun (which is lower in the winter) to shine under them and into the house. The length of the louvers must be determined by the angle difference between summer and winter and also the overall height of the window. This angle is determined by your geographical location.

PV, should be on their own mount, hopefully you'll be installing a sun-tracker if you don't already have one. I will have more on PV later.