Since ancient times, people have found ways to use the sun’s heat to stay warm or keep cool. They built homes from clay and other materials that hold heat well, and they placed them in ways that ...

As I discussed in last week’s column ("Resilience: Dramatically Better Building Envelopes," Jan. 4), a resilient home is extremely well-insulated, so that it can be kept warm with very little ...

SOLAR HOT WATER pre-heat systems fall into two basic categories active and passive types with numerous subcategories. A passive solar DHW pre-heater is also known as a breadbox heater or batch heater.

Now that the winter solstice, the shortest daylight day of the year, is behind us I’m reminded of how important it is to let the sunshine into our lives. There are many benefits to having large ...

Q. I feel the sun shining in a living room window and it's very warm. My budget is pretty tight, but I want to make or install something to capture that heat and lower my heating bills. What do you ...

Heating houses is a major energy suck. Behind passenger cars and trucking, it’s the largest energy draw in the United States. But it turns out homeowners looking to stay warm don’t need to rely just ...

Over the past two weeks, I’ve written about two relatively obscure passive solar heating strategies: Isolated gain using sunspaces, and; indirect gain using a Trombe walls. This week I’ll cover a far ...

This second floor room takes advantage of the passive solar heat of the morning sun. ANA VENEGAS Fresno Custom Publications Photo When Chris Senior was in college in the ’70s, he was convinced energy ...

As a former realtor, general contractor and greenhouse operator, Kristi has touched nearly all aspects of homeownership, from the foundation up. Today, Kristi is a full-time investing and real estate ...

Solar thermal energy is the process of concentrating sunlight to create heat, which can be used to create electricity or to heat a home, its water supply and more. Solar thermal energy can be used as ...

When he first heard about Passivhaus, Germany’s rigorous energy-efficiency building standard, architect Matthew O’Malia thought, “That’s crazy: a foot-thick wall, all this insulation in the foundation ...