[Greenbuilding] Passive solar in hot, humid climate

[Mark Marcoplos]

Here's an article I wrote explaining my successful strategy in central North 
Carolina designing & building our family home. Might find a few useful 
techniques in there.

http://www.smart-homeowner.com/articles/23/

Mark Marcoplos
Marcoplos Construction

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ian Remmler" <ian at remmler.org>
To: <greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 11:32 AM
Subject: [Greenbuilding] Passive solar in hot, humid climate


> Hi,
>
> I'm planning to build a house in the Austin, Texas area, and I
> want to incorporate passive solar heating and cooling into the
> design.  Common wisdom around here is that a 2 foot overhang on
> the south wall is enough to block the sun in the summer.
>
> But this is based on the sun's path around solstice time.  If my
> calculations are correct, in late August at a bit after 1:00
> (solar time), the sun will hit about half of the south wall at a
> 45 degree azimuth.  We had 24 100+ days this August.
>
> I've thought about putting an 8 foot deep porch along the entire
> south wall.  Yes, this will prevent much direct gain in the
> winter, but I'm wondering if it would be worth it to keep cool
> in late summer / early fall (and spring sometimes).  I've only
> found a couple of references that recommend this approach, but
> before air conditioning it was a common feature of the local
> architecture.  So does it make sense to block all direct gain
> when it's hot at the expense of some winter heating (which is
> really only needed for about two months around here)?
>
> Please share your thoughts and experiences.
>
> Thanks,
>    - Ian.
>
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