ECO friendly building. We're not jumping on the bandwagon....

We're driving it!

What happens when the sun doesn't shine?

Its very surprising how little sun you need for the solar power system to be effective but obviously if you are living full time and have unexpected guests, which is common when the nicer weather arrives! there will be times when you are using more than usual and it may be that a source of backup power is advisable for such times. These are available as wind turbines (surprisingly very very good!) and Generators, gas, diesel or joint fuels. These are not as expensive as you may think.

Useful tips

SAVE MONEY...GO GREEN!! Build an eco friendly home

Electric kettles, air conditioning units, electric convector heaters and electric cookers use a huge amount of electric and to keep the cost of the solar power system down it is strongly advisable that you install a Gas cooker and hob, try and use gas central heating (if required) and boil water on a gas stove. These few things will make an enormous difference to the cost of your solar power system.

Passive solar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Passive solar design is a broad category of solar power techniques and strategies for regulating a building's indoor air and domestic water temperatures, using climate, site features, architectural elements, and lanscape materials. The goal is typically to increase the comfort, efficiency and reliability of a building, while reducing its operating costs and dependence on other sources of energy for heating and cooling.
In new United States residential construction, properly-designed passive solar heating and cooling is surprisingly cheap to construct, and commands premium prices. In areas with more than two weeks of frost, passive solar heat adds about 15% to the cost of new construction. In areas with fewer frosts, it has no extra construction costs for heating. Passive annualized solar heating shifts heat from one season to another, and these systems can reduce cooling costs as well.

History

The ancient Greeks and Romans used solar design features in their housing, but the first passive solar houses of the modern era were built in Germany after the first world war, when the Allies occupied the Ruhr area, including most of Germany's coal mines. These designs were studied in the United States, but had little influence on builders.
The first passive solar house in the US was designed in 1940 by George F. Keck for a Chicago area real estate developer named Howard Sloan. Keck had designed an all-glass house for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago and was surprised to find that it was warm inside on sunny winter days, even though the furnace hadn't been installed yet. Keck was not aware of the research being done elsewhere on solar architecture, but he gradually started incorporating more south-facing windows into his designs for other clients, and by 1940 he had learned enough to design a passive solar house for Sloan.
Sloan built a number of passive solar houses in the 1940s, and his publicity efforts influenced a number of other builders during the postwar housing boom (Sloan is also credited with popularizing the term "solar" to describe his houses). But some builders of that era didn't realize that the houses were designed to face south, and many were built facing other directions, which hurt their reputation. Critics also pointed out that windows and doors weren't always properly sealed. Public interest declined by 1950 due to cheap oil and general prosperity, until it was revived after the 1973 oil cisis.

Our systems have a survivable wind speed of 60 m/s (134 Mph)