John Spears has been designing additions and passive solar sun spaces for over 30 years. The passive solar sunspace is usually an addition to the home to expand the living and kitchen areas. The passive solar sunspace incorporates large south facing windows and skylights to collect the solar heat in the winter, thermal mass to store the heat for the evening and good insulation. The addition is also well integrated into the existing heating and cooling system so the whole house can benefit from the solar addition. In many cases, we have added 30% more floor area to the home and at the same time reduced the heating cost by 30%. The passive solar sunspace is also designed to stay cool in the summer and reduce your cooling cost. We do this with good shading and ventilation strategies.
In some cases the passive solar sunspace is designed as a working greenhouse. In this case the greenhouse can be designed to heat the home, grow food and flowers and the growing beds can be designed to filter the grey water from the sinks and showers in the house. |
