Chitika

söndag 13 september 2009

Home Heating Using the Sun

By Alexei Nevic

We have grown accustomed to having heat at the push of a button. This heat though too often is generated through inefficient methods. A much more energy efficient,not to mention cost effective, way to heat our homes,schools, and businesses is to use solar power.Capturing heat from the sun can be done in several ways,even in the dead of winter.In order to harness the sun's heat what is called a solar source is needed.A solar source is something that will attract the sun's rays and trap the heat generated by them. A sun room is a good way to illustrate this.

Sun rooms are attached to the house and are typically constructed of floor to ceiling glass panels.They are usually built to face the full morning sun so as to get the full effect of the heat. The glass intensifies the sun's rays so that everything in the room is heated. This is a very efficient and generally economical way of heating.

Some other forms of solar power heat are:

Thermal mass that absorbs and retains heat while the sun is shining then releases the heat when the sun goes down.

A natural ventilation and solar heating system, the Trombe Wall, uses air channels to trap heat between glass and a solar mass facing the sun. That sunlight is then absorbed and stored in the wall before being circulated through vents in the top and bottom of the wall.The wall uses this to radiate the heat.

The solar chimney is another solar ventilation system. It is made from a thermal mass that is hollow inside. The chimney warms air inside of the chimney causing the heat to rise,allowing the air to circulate and vent properly.

A good way to ventilate a building is using solar cooling. This is done by absorbing solar heat and cooling it by making ice with a solar powered steam engine attached to the cooling device.

There are of course many ways to heat and cool our homes and businesses, but the methods listed above demonstrate the ways it can be done using only the sun. This is one of the better ways because it uses only natural resources rather than through methods that use non renewable materials.

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