Most people think of solar panel systems on roofs when you mention the word solar in relation to their home. In truth, any home with windows is using solar energy and it’s easy, free energy to boot. Now most are not using it well and that is why I’m writing this article.

So even though you may not realize it, you live in a solar home. In fact, every home you’ve lived in was powered with solar in one form or another. This whole idea is known as passive solar and it can be used to save you a lot of money on your utilities bills.

Every home has a room or rooms that get warmed by the sun during the day. Sometimes they get a lot hotter then we are comfortable with. These hot rooms, of course, are usually on the south and west sides of the house at least here in North America, and are in the sun all day. This energy from the sun is essentially a nuclear reactor and the power it produces is immense. When the sun hits a room it can heat up significantly within 30 minutes. With some thought and effort you can use this power to heat your home in what is called a passive way. Many people just don’t know how they can tap this energy, in order to save themselves a ton of money on their energy bills.

But the sunlight really is very easy to put to work in your home. When you want heat, let it in. When you don’t, block it out. When sun energy enters an area through a window, that area will heat up and that area is called an isolated gain location. For instance, if you have light shinning through the window of any room and if you close the door to that room it will heat up and that will make that room an isolated gain area.

There are two excellent ways to put this to your use.

1: By tracking the path of the sun you can use the sunlight to passively heat your home by adding isolated gain areas that follow the suns path. The heat will even itself out through your home as the heat rises and circulates. In this way if a home has isolated access areas that track the path of the sun, you can gain free heat throughout the day. Most homes have windows along the side walls of the house, but miss out on one of the best ways of letting the sun into their home and that is through the roof. Skylights are one of the best ways to add heating to your home and they are not that expensive to install either.

2: A second method for turning the sunlight into heat involves collecting the heat through different materials. Certain materials like brick, concrete and stone take longer to heat up in the sun, but also will generate heat longer once the sun has set. This is known as using thermal mass to heat your home. Masonry materials universally collect and hold energy from the sun and can be used for flooring materials below a window, or walls or fireplaces etc. These materials will heat up throughout the day and once the sun sets, the materials will continue to heat your home for hours. Just think about to how long your fireplace continues to radiate heat after the fire has gone out.

Passively heating your home using the sun’s energy will never replace the need for utilities. However, minor home improvements can help create heat during the day and not only make your home more comfortable but save you money as well.

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