Passive Solar

Design
Passive solar has been
used for thousands of years

Southwest United States

Adobe solar architecture
 Passive Solar Design
 Passive solar heating is defined as using solar energy
striking windows, skylights, greenhouses, clerestories,
and mass walls in order to provide heating for a house.
 Generally, such solar collection occurs passively,
without the extensive use of pumps or fans typically
used in active solar collector systems.
 Because heating is needed only over the colder part of
the year (Sept. to May), passive solar design must also
eliminate unwanted solar heat gains during the summer.
 The use of techniques to eliminate solar gains and to
cool a house with the use of active systems is often
referred to as passive cooling
1. Conservation Levels: Higher than normal levels of insulation and
airtightness
2. Distribution of Solar Glazing: distributed throughout the building
proportional to the heat loss of each zone
3. Orientation: Optimum within 5 degrees of true south
4. Glazing Tilt: Looking for perpendicular to sun angle in winter,
although vertical efficient where lots of reflective snow cover
5. Number of glazing layers: 3 to 4 for severe climates, less otherwise
6. Night insulation and Low-E glazing: Greatly improves reduction of
night heat losses
7. Mixing passive systems can increase comfort levels.
Types of Passive Systems

 Direct Gain
 Trombe Wall or Mass Wall
 Sunspace or Greenhouse
 Roof Systems
Direct Gain Systems
 Sunlight incident on transparent surfaces
allows the energy to enter the living space
directly and is called Direct Gain.
 South facing windows thus form the basis
for the simplest type of solar heating
system.
 With some simple guidelines, this design is
the cheapest and best way to incorporate
solar into a house.
Direct Gain Passive Solar Design
 Surfaces should be generally facing
 PRECAUTIONS
south (to within 20 degrees)
 Excess window
 Overhangs should prevent unwanted area can result in
summer gains (2 ft typical at 40 a loss of privacy,
degrees latitude) too much glare,
 Window area should be 8-12% of the underheating and
house floor area if no extra thermal overheating
mass is added  Movable
insulation should
 This amount of passive solar gain be designed to be
should provide no more than 40-50% easy to install and
of the yearly heating load use
 More area may be possible if
additional thermal mass is added.
A Simple Direct Gain
System
1. Mass Distribution: spread it around evenly; 6 times glazing area
(3X minimum)
2. Mass Thickness: thin and spread out better than thick. More than
4” for masonry or concrete not useful
3. Colour: Floors dark to absorb more heat, walls and ceilings lighter
to reflect light.
4. Surface Covering: insulative coverings (ie. Rugs) greatly decrease
performance of thermal mass
5. Concrete Block Masonry: If used, a high density with cores filled
with grout
6. Floor Materials: Concrete or brick preferred. If insulating under, at
least 4” thick (100mm). More than 6” (150mm) not useful.
7. Limits on Direct Gain Glazing Area: South facing glazing limited to
prevent large temperature swings. 7% of floor area for low mass
buildings, 13% of floor area for high mass buildings.
8. Glazing orientation: Vertical facing due south preferred. Vertical
easiest to build, and easiest to shade in summer. Performance
penalty for 15degrees off due south is 10% and for 30 degrees is 20%
loss; so within 15 degrees recommended.
9. Night insulation: Really helpful but can be very costly.
10. Thermal Insulation: Insulation located OUTSIDE the thermal mass.
Good design is based on combining
several elements and ideas

 Knowledge of seasonal changes in sun

path
 Landscaping in the site plan
 Overhangs
 Appropriate use of thermal mass
 Energy efficient design for the thermal
envelope
The Sun’s Seasonal Path
This path is hemisphere and latitude dependent
40 Degree Latitude Sun Chart
showing altitude and azimuth angles for different
months of the year and times of the day
Site Plan
Don’t shade the south, except for overhangs, but
do shade the east and west sides. Decks,
porches and carports also may be used to shade.
Overhangs on the South
Side
Thermal Mass
provided by normal drywall and furnishings and
also by slabs, mass walls, fireplaces, etc.
Clerestory is also direct gain
 Excellent for
bringing
daylighting to
northern spaces
(deep houses)
 Can use north
wall masonry
heat storage
 Overhang over
clerestory
window shades
in summer
Example of Clerestory
House
Thermal Storage Walls or
Trombe Walls
 Advantages:  Precautions:
 Eliminates glare  More expensive and less
 Lowers temperature efficient than direct gain
swings in room  More difficult to reduce
 Vents allow partition of nighttime losses
energy into daytime and  Best for sunnier climates
nighttime heating  Occupies valuable space
 Sun hits entire mass in building
Trombe Wall with Vents
 Operation of Trombe Wall
 Sunlight hits the darkened mass wall and absorbed heat
moves slowly across the wall
 The inside surface temperature peaks 6-8 hours after the
midday outside surface peak
 Operational vents allow optional controlled air circulation
into the space during the day
 Overhang reduces wall sun exposure during the warmer
months
 Vent added to outside at the top can drive warm air out in
the summer and bring cooler air from a north vent
 can be used as part of a south-facing greenhouse
 may be retrofitted to existing houses with brick or stone
construction
SUNSPACE CONCEPT
with mass wall added
Sunspace -- a passive solar heating system type consisting of
a glassed-in room like a greenhouse, atrium or conservatory,
located on the south side of a building and separated from
other building spaces by a common wall.
Common Wall -- a wall separating a sunspace from other
living spaces.
Greenhouse -- a sunspace used primarily for growing plants
Projected Glazing Area -- net glazing projected onto a single
vertical wall.
Attached Greenhouses or
Sunspaces
 Advantages:
 Lower temperature swings
in adjacent living space
 Flexible – can be operated
in many modes
 Provides additional living
or growing space  Precautions:
 Works well in late winter  Price moderate to high
and spring when standard
overhangs block direct  Thermal performance
gain through windows depends greatly on how it
is operated
1. Effect of orientation: optimum due south. Penalties about 5% for 30degrees
off due south. More summer overheating for off south directions.
2. Use of Mass: increases space’s livability. Reduces overheating. Optimum
thickness for masonry walls between 8 and 12”.
3. Area of Mass: direct gain rules apply: 3mass to 1glazing.
4. Do not glaze end walls: for both summer and winter performance.

5. Summer Venting: needs to be vented during summer especially if not well

shaded.

6. Wall Colour: Direct gain rules apply, except:

a. use darker colours in general as light colours tend to reflect light and
heat out of the space
b. if used as a green house, surfaces in corners need to be light to
improve plant performance/life.
7. Sunspace width: 15 to 20 feet works well.
8. Colour: dark colours work better to absorb heat.
9. Plants and other lightweight objects: Limit.
10. Roof: Need to be able to shade it in the summer to avoid overheating.
Curtain, awnings or internal shades, OK.

11. Common Wall: Needs to be able to be closed off from main living space
to avoid overheating. Preferably masonry (like trombe wall).

12. Common wall vents: required as one of the ways heat is transferred to the
living space.
a. doorways, 15% of glazing area
b. window openings, 20% of glazing area
c. high and low vent pairs, 10% of glazing area
Solar Greenhouse with
thermal mass in the floor
and in water barrels
Thermal Storage Roofs

 Advantages:  Precautions:
 Provides both heating  Structural support for
and cooling heavy mass expensive
 Provides low  Most easily used in 1
temperature swing in the story buildings
building  Typically 50% size of
 Can provide 100% of floor area
heating and cooling in  Least acceptable design
milder climates in earthquake prone
areas
Thermal Roof Concept
Passive Solar Design Style
 The effectiveness of solar heating does not
depend on the style (Cape Cod, Colonial,
modern, contemporary) of house that you
design.
 Houses may be small and simple, or
spectacular; the solar concept being
applied is the same.
 Of course, the smaller the house, the less
resources and cost will be needed to build
and maintain it.
High Mass Adobe House
Earthship
Earthship
Earthship
Earthship
http://earthship.com/
Direct Gain Solar House
High Mass Desert House
Adobe Sunspace High
Mass House
Clerestory Direct Gain
House
Point House in California
Coast
Direct Gain Solar House