Sizing a Window and Awning for a Passive Solar Home

Purpose:
 To gain understanding of passive solar window design and seasonal solar elevation changes
 To practice engineering drawing techniques

Materials Required
 Graph paper
 A straight edge
 A protractor
 A ruler
 A pencil

Procedure
Imagine an existing 2-story house that faces
south and which has a window on the first
floor and none on the second. The owner
wishes to improve its passive solar features by adding a window to the second floor and an awning
above the window on the first.
To save expense, the owner wants to use the existing roof overhang on the second floor to
shade the second-story window in the summer. You will produce an engineering drawing and use it
to estimate the size of the second-story window and the first-floor awning.

 Draw a ½” boarder around the paper.

 Draw a title box in the lower right hand corner. Fill in the title box information: drawing title,
your name, a drawing number and a revision number (this will be revision 0), the date, and a
space for the drawing to be approved.
 On a separate piece of paper sketch what your drawing might look like and calculate the overall
dimensions of the part of the house you will draw. Use this to decide the scale. Choose the scale
so the drawing will fit on the paper and also so that it won’t be too small. It is good to take into
account the size of the boxes on the graph paper so that an even unit corresponds to 1 box. For
example, if the boxes are ¼” then a scale of 1”=4’ would work well because each box would
represent 1 foot.
 Referring to your sketch, start drawing a house with the following dimensions:
o Height of first story: 9 feet
o Height of second story: 8 feet
o Roof slope: one unit up for every two units horizontally
o First story window is located 2 feet off the floor and is 2.5 feet high

This course developed by The North Carolina School of Science and Math for NCDPI
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
 o The roof overhang comes out 2 feet from the outside wall

 Use a protractor to draw the angle of the sun rays for the winter and the summer.
o Put the origin of the protractor on a point of interest, like the top of the window, and
make sure to bottom of the protractor is horizontal.
o Draw a mark at the summer and winter elevation angles
o Remove the protractor and draw a line from that point on the wall to the summer and
winter marks. Make the lines distinctive, perhaps making one dashed and the other
solid, so one can tell summer from winter rays.
o Repeat for all points of interest and add a few other rays to make the rays look even
overall
o Although the highest summer elevation in North Carolina is about 78 degrees and the
lowest winter elevation is about 31 degrees, use a summer angle of 60 degrees to
exclude the sun from March through August. Keep the winter angle, but round it to 30
degrees for convenience.

 Draw labels, arrows, and dimensions

 Determine the size of the second-story window
o Find the topmost winter ray that reaches the side of the house. This is the top of the
window.
o Find the bottommost summer ray that reaches the side of the house. This is the bottom
of the window.
o Draw in the new window
o Use a ruler to measure the height on the drawing, then use the scale to calculate the
actual windows dimension and how high it is off the floor. Add the dimensions to the
drawing.
 Determine the size of the first-story awning
o Find the highest winter ray that enters the window.
o Find the lowest summer ray that enters the window.
o Where these two rays meet it the tip of the awning. You can draw the awning from this
point to the house, taking any path to the house that you wish.
o Measure the horizontal length of the awning, use the scale to calculate the actual
length, and add the dimension to the drawing.
o Erase the parts of the rays that are now blocked by the awning

This course developed by The North Carolina School of Science and Math for NCDPI
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
 This course developed by The North Carolina School of Science and Math for NCDPI
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Analysis and Discussion
How might the sizing of the new window change if you could also change the roof overhang or
add a second awning?
If the roof overhang is lengthened or a second awning is added, the window size would be increased and
its position would be lowered. If the overhang was shortened, the window size would be decreased and
its position would be raised.

In the space below, sketch the roof of a house with a skylight (essentially a window in the
roof). Sketch the summer sun and the winter sun along with the direction of their rays.

Describe how the passive solar gain for a skylight compares to that of a window. Does it work
the same way? Compared to a well designed window through a wall, will a skylight make the
house warmer or less warm in the winter? In the summer?
As long as the skylight has an angle of elevation less than 45º, it will absorb much more summer
sun than the window, and more summer sun than winter sun. The skylight will cause the house
to be warmer in the summer and less warm in the summer; this is why skylights are designed for
natural lighting, and not temperature control.

Imagine this same house at a lower latitude (closer to the equator). What happens to the
elevation angles in the summer and the winter? How might this affect the size of an awning
used to block the summer sun?
The elevation angles would be more similar and closer to 90º year-round. This would mean an
awning wouldn’t have to be as long to block a window from the summer sun, but there will also
be little winter sun to be absorbed.
This course developed by The North Carolina School of Science and Math for NCDPI
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Rubric
Stellar Well Done OK Missed the mark
Drawing Drawing has all the Drawing has most of There are several Serious omission of
components specified, the components omissions or drawing components,
is done neatly, and is specified, is done inaccuracies and drawing does not
accurate neatly, and is mostly neatness is marginal reflect the house,
accurate sloppy drawing
Data Analysis Window and awning Window and awning Window and awning Both the graphical
sizes are size logically sizes are sizes wrong but the analysis to determine
and the sizes approximately correct sizes determined the sizes and the
determined and the sizes using the scale match conversion to real
accurately using the determined what is on the dimensions are
scale. accurately using the drawing. inaccurate.
scale.
Discussion Answers are in full Answers show Very brief answers Answers are missing
sentences, show understanding of the demonstrating little or so short as to
understanding of the concepts, but are insight. provide no insight into
concepts. either brief or the understanding by
imprecise. the student.

This course developed by The North Carolina School of Science and Math for NCDPI
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License