  Chapter
5 - Your Site Talks First |
|
Topics
|
|
topics found only
in the complete eBook
- Site Preservation vs Site Manipulation.
- Site Features to Improve on or to Create.
- The Site Shapes
Other House Features
- Zoning
- The Roof for Shade
|
|
|
YOUR
PART IN A WORLD GREENING
Regardless whether you are interested in helping to
improve our environment or just to lower your heating and cooling bills
participating in the Design of Your New Home can help you do so and with
extra benefits. Benefits such as an integrated and attractive home
which if not immediately Green
will be ready for much of it in the future at little to no extra cost.
Where you start at is with your house site. If you already
own your land then you evaluate it for its green potential. If you have
yet to purchase the land then this chapter becomes criteria to use in your
selection. Here is how.
To start, your Site determines the feasibility and
efficiency of numerous Green related elements such as :
|
|
- A House’s Shape &
Location Using Solar Generated Electricity for Power
- Augmenting Solar Power with Wind Power
- More than the Color Green Landscape Plan
- Site Preservation vs Site Manipulation.
- Site Features to Improve on or to Create.
- The Site Shapes
Other House Features
- Zoning
- The Roof for Shade
- Superinsulated Walls
|
|
|
House Shape and Location Using Solar Power
This subject seeks to help anyone
interested in Solar Powering a not yet designed house to do the
following:
- Maximize the performance of a Solar Power System.
- Improve and ease the implementation of a Solar
Power System.
- Improve the appearance of a Solar Powered Home.
- Provide for the easy installation of a future
system, if longer range implementation is necessary.
In this day and age we all are aware
of Solar Power's promise. With every spike in fuel costs we become more
acutely aware. Today is a good time for anyone designing their own home
to get at least started. The purpose here though is not to delve into the
intricacies of Solar Power. Many ebooks, manuals and products are now on
the market to take the home owner or DIYer through the technicalities
step by step. The following link reviews a number of manuals to get you
started.
Product Reviews
Instead this article seeks to deliver a more focused
input into the Solar Power equation: that of your
house’s shape on its site. Many of these suggestions are well known.
What is important is to increase your success by using all of them as a
precursor to the design of your home and not the other way around. In this
manner you will have the ability, or at least the future potential, of
Solar Power incorporated more efficiently and attractively into your home
(rather than ‘tacked’ on). In short, a floor plan should NOT be done
prior to determining your Solar Power Plan. This is the mistake made time
in and time out as can be seen from all of those adhoc panels propped
awkwardly on roofs and in yards.
|
|
What is a SOLAR POWER PLAN?
A Solar Power Plan starts with a diagram of your
land showing four decisions.
- Where the house is located,
- How it is oriented (N/S),
- How it is shaped,
- And the direction, size and angle of the roof.
|
|
|
You make these four important decisions by using the
following rules. See the book for a complete walk through.
- Solar Panels need to be oriented properly toward
the sun. South
naturally but with both summer and winter
taken into account.
- Panels need to be as high as possible.
Preferably on the roof and at high point of
your land to gain the most light.
- The angle of the roof should be the same as the
ideal angle of the panels. Simplifies installation, strengthens the
panels & looks better.
- Panels need to be contiguous and as compact as
possible.
Limits wiring, voltage drop & looks better.
- The roof area should be large enough to contain
all the panels needed for your power goal.
Calculate your panel area according to
your power goals first. see link below for sources.
- Distance to battery storage and
house equipment should be short . Limits wiring and voltage drop.
- Shadows should not be cast over the panels. Duh, don’t have tall trees in the wrong
place or the house located poorly on a hill.
Once you have done your technical research the answers
to these do and don’t rules are pretty simple. The
material at this link will get you started;
product reviews. Finally, once you have these answers
and put them together you will see how and why Solar Power needs to be the
first dictator of the location, shape, orientation and height of your
house. You will also have started the most important part of your Solar
Power Plan.
|
|
|
|
|
Augmenting Solar Power with Wind Power as a Site Determinant
Although
Wind Power can stand on its own as a Green power source I believe it is
more rightfully an augment to Solar Power. As such Solar should take
first priority in planning your site / land / lot. Once you have a
location and orientation for your house determined by the Solar Power Plan
it is then time to crank in this second determining issue – the wind. In short, think of
providing a wind turbine as a back up to the sunshine. Or think even
bigger if you like, but think and incorporate now, not after your house is
designed.
Why bother
with thinking about your site arrangement with Solar as the first
priority? Why not just stick a wind turbine anywhere and run a cable to
the batteries? Well you can if you want to risk lowering the wind
efficiency maybe even to a point of defeating the cost benefits of the
turbine. But if your site is small and your wind conditions limited or
variable then you are advised to study the matter now. Now is the time to
weigh the pros and cons if sun and wind end up competing with each other
for limited space. Here are some things to consider before
locking locations in cement. These are obvious but do form a
convenient checklist.
|
-
Do you have a
prevailing wind, how strong, often and from where?
-
Does your house’s solar location
block the wind? Or
-
Can the house be positioned just
so as to increase the wind velocity?
-
Is there anything tall within
300ft of a potential wind site?
-
Can the trees be removed without
detriment to other benefits?
-
Can the house be designed to
incorporate a turbine on the roof? A clock tower that's a
windmill?? ( what would the neighbors say!)?
|
 |
|
Obviously you need to do some
research to complete this task. But once completed your site
plan will start to fall in place. For help think of the local
meteorologist and maybe a neighbor with a mechanical engineering
background. Also for looking into the costs see this link. You may be
surprised at how economical a DIY wind turbine can be.
Click here.
Another word for those who are wind
'leery'. Something you will hear repeatedly in this book is 'don't burn
your bridges'. Seriously, even if today you think there is too much
hot wind in wind, or what ever, run through the exercise of planning for a
turbine anyway. You might someday change your mind. Or a future owner
might be an avid Green DIYer. If there is a critical place on your land
for a wind turbine that can be preserved without great sacrifice what does
it hurt? But if you arrange the site to block it there's no going back for
anyone.
|
|
|
|
For the remainder of this chapters topics as well
graphics please purchase this book.
purchase
this book
.
to
the top of the Chapter
read more
|
