The Solar Home: How to Design and Build a House You Heat With the Sun (How-To Guides)

262 Pages·1994·2.29 MB·English

by  Mark Freeman

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The Solar Home
How to Design and Build a House You Heat with the Sun
Mark Freeman

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Copyright © 1994 by Mark Freeman
Published by
STACKPOLE BOOKS
5067 Ritter Road
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter
Road, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
First edition
Cover design by Kathleen D. Peters
Line drawings by Lisa Falconer-Otey
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Freeman, Mark, 1927-
The solar home: how to design and build a house you heat with the
sun / by Mark Freeman. 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-8117-2446-8
1. Solar housesDesign and constructionAmateurs' manuals.
I. Title.
TH7414.F74 1993
690'.8370472dc20 93-43602
CIP

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To Frank Trerise
Without Frank, there would have been no
Fiddlers Green, and without Fiddlers Green,
there would have been no book.

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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
Part One: Design 1
Chapter 1: Design Considerations for Any Dwelling 2
Chapter 2: Special Design Considerations for Passive Solar Construction 7
Chapter 3: Site Selection 20
Chapter 4: Designing Foundation, Basement, Garage, and Stonemasonry 25
Chapter 5: Designing Kitchen, Bathrooms, and Laundry 32
Chapter 6: Designing Other Rooms 38
Chapter 7: Designing a Sunspace or Greenhouse 41
Part Two: Construction 47
Chapter 8: Why You Can and Should Do It Yourself 48
Chapter 9: Parts of the Job to Be Contracted Out 52
Chapter 10: Secrets You'll Never Learn Anywhere but Here (and Mistakes We Made That You Can Avoid) 59
Chapter 11: Labor, Materials, and Tools 65
Chapter 12: Framing the Floor 72
Chapter 13: Framing the Walls 87
Chapter 14: Framing the Roof 102
Chapter 15: Finish Roofing 111
Chapter 16: Windows and Exterior Doors 119
Chapter 17: Roughing-in Wiring 125
Chapter 18: Finish Wiring 137
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Chapter 19: Roughing-in Plumbing 147
Chapter 20: Finish Plumbing 160

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Chapter 21: Insulation and Vapor Barrier 164
Chapter 22: Exterior Finish 169
Chapter 23: Interior Finish 176
Part Three: Solar Living 193
Chapter 24: Condensation and Ventilation 194
Chapter 25: A Short Course in Woodburning 199
Chapter 26: Shutters and Drapes 208
Chapter 27: A Solar Home Calendar 214
Appendix 219

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The following professionals were helpful in answering questions and giving advice; any errors are mine, however,
and not theirs: Ray Bates and his crew from Peabody, Bates, and Company; David Owen of Owen Associates; John,
Doug, Charley, and the rest of the gang at Curtis Lumber; the folks at Quaker Electric and at Adirondack Glass; Bill
Brown, Sheetrocker extraordinaire; Jack Jamieson, stonemason; and others I've probably forgotten.
Thanks for all their help to passive solar homeowners Mary Ann and Jim Potter of Queensbury, New York; Helen
and George Johnson of Greenwich, New York; Hank and Bonney Hughes of Santa Fe, New Mexico; Bob and Sarah
Michaels of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; and others.
Thanks also to the following people, who were amateur builders when we started but are amateurs no longer: Patty
Freeman-Lynde, Polly Freeman, Bob Carty, Al Cederstrom and lots of others who helped with construction, for an
hour or for a week. Most of all, I owe a great debt to my wife, Anne, who not only shingled roofs but also read copy,
and who is the world's best speller.

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INTRODUCTION
We moved into Fiddlers Green, our passive solar house, on Christmas Eve 1986. Since that date, we have never paid
a nickel to an oil company, electric company, or any other company to heat our home. That's really all you need to
know to decide whether you want to live in a solar house. If consuming less fueleither because you believe America
is too dependent on fossil fuels or because you'd just as soon keep the money you've been paying your fuel or power
companyis not important to you, then you probably shouldn't read any further. Granted, solar heat is vastly more
friendly to the environment than other forms, and it has other advantages, but the fact that it's free is what most of us
like best about it.
We do have a backup heating system: a small woodstove in the basement. We don't buy wood; we cut it on our
property. Our demand doesn't keep up with the supply furnished by our five acres of woodlot; two acres would
probably be enough. We burn about two and a half cords every winterslightly more in a mild winter, slightly less in
a cold one. (This paradox, one of many associated with solar heating, will be explained later.) It takes us less than
forty hours to cut, split, and stack a year's wood supply. Even if we used oil heat as a backup, we would burn less
than three hundred gallons of fuel a year.
In case you think there is something unique about our situation, here's another case to consider: Helen and George
Johnson live in a passive solar house about ten miles from us. The design and construction of their house are
somewhat different, but the size is very nearly the same. They also have no backup heat other than wood, and they
also burn about two cords a year. We've heard similar stories from people in many other locations.
Burning wood provides about 20 percent of our heat. Most of the rest comes from the sun, although some
heatperhaps more than we think

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comes from other sources, such as electric lights, cooking, and the warmth of human bodies. If you don't think
human bodies give off much heat, remember that party you went to in the dead of winter? Thirty people attended,
and your host finally had to open some windows. We're still learning new things about our house that fascinate and
amuse us; the latest is that though snow doesn't melt off our roof much, when we get a dusting, the first part of the
roof to emerge is an oval exactly over our bed.
Fiddlers Green is in the foothills of the Adirondacks, about six hundred feet above sea level, just north of the forty-
third parallel of latitude. It gets cold here, and it snows a lot. The average number of degree-days per year here is
7,500. (One degree-day is recorded on a day when the mean daily temperature is 64 degrees Fone less than 65
degrees. A week of days averaging 30 degrees produces 245 degree days.) We don't know the exact figures for
insolation (how much sunshine the location gets), but it is often cloudy in winter. Our house has approximately
sixteen hundred square feet of floor space, not counting the full basement, and most of the ceilings are very high,
which makes the solar heating work better (another paradox). According to a local oil dealer, if it were a
conventional house, newly constructed and well insulated, it would cost on the average a thousand dollars per year
to heat. (Since he sells oil for a living, his estimate is probably conservative.) We pay nothing.
If you decide to build a passive solar house, you should know that the motto of a great many Americans is "Don't
confuse me with the facts; I've made up my mind." Some of your friends and relatives will tell you that they know
for a fact your plan can't possibly work. Ignore them. Half of them will tell you that you'll freeze in winter; the other
half, that you'll roast in summer. When I ask people what they do when it gets too hot in their house, they always
reply, "We open a window." They seem astonished to find that we can do the same thing.
Neither dire prediction will come true, but that won't convince them. I once gave a relative an entire tour of the
house, explaining every facet of the solar and wood heating systems. I took her from the top of the house to the
basement, exploring every corner. When I got through with my explanation, I asked if she had any questions.
"Yes," she replied. "Where's the furnace?"
There isn't any furnace; there isn't any electric heat; there isn't any cost.
Not everything in this book will apply to you. For example, you may have to or want to hire a licensed electrician to
do the wiring of your

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