Designing An Energy Efficient Home From The Beginning




Before you start construction of a new home, you must keep in mind that planning to have an energy efficient home has to be done in the beginning. It cannot be implemented later or as it will not give the best performance.

It needs careful evaluation of the building site and also the climatic condition of that particular area to get best results and the design has to be made accordingly. There are many software programs available which are energy related and can assist you a lot.

The main points of consideration are the latitude of the Sun which has direct effect on the heating or cooling requirement of your home. The placement of windows will determine the maximum solar gain in the winter months and reduce the heat in the summer months.

You may have to take into consideration about the outdoor which may have effect on the direct sunlight. The wind direction is another aspect which has to be taken into the consideration, as winds have direct effect on cooling as well as heating during the different seasons.

If the wind comes from the direction where there is good snowfall, you will get cold winter winds or receive cool summer breeze. You will have to see the natural drainage pattern and include a design which will fit the natural drainage. This will ensure maximum water supply and also prevent future water damage.

A well designed and well-constructed energy efficient home reduces the use of natural resources which will have direct effect on the future operational costs and also the construction material required to build the home.

Other points which require your consideration are location of rooms and spaces with low HVAC. You can also consider limiting the number of windows on the north side of the home and also in the service rooms. You must have operable windows to provide cross ventilation in the warmer summer months. You must also see that maximum daylight is available in all the rooms which will significantly reduce the use of electricity for lighting the rooms.



Since energy efficient homes have very little cooling or heating requirements, you can accurately design the mechanical system. Oversized mechanical systems are more expensive to install and operate and also require very high maintenance.

HVAC systems should be located centrally to reduce the ductwork as this will save you of unnecessary expenses. The construction of home needs lot of planning and hard work, any small mistake can cost you lot of money as it will be very difficult to alter the design after the construction is over.

The wall-sealed thermal envelope which retains the heat in the cold months and cool thermal mass in the summer. The most acceptable and popular technique is ICF also known as Insulated Form Construction. This technique has been very popular because it reduces the heating and cooling costs considerably, it also reduces moisture levels, maximizes structural strength against the hurricane and tornado winds, this has also fourfold security against fire.

5 Tips Of Home Photovoltaic PV System Cost Saving




Installation of home photovoltaic solar panels is normally a preliminary step, before planning to make a habitat 100% green. Here are a few tips to share, on making your own solar panel, for producing electricity for domestic purposes.

It is a common notion that installation of solar panels is highly expensive, which is not a true. But solar installations sometimes become quite expensive, if the services of some large companies like Evergreen Solar or similar other professionals are hired.

Any person can choose to set up his own solar panel as suggested here.

1) At first try buying broken or chipped solar panels, from the sources that sell them. Some of the accredited manufacturers of solar cells also fail to make perfect products, which gives a chance for a buyer to negotiate at a cheaper rate.

The solar products bought from such companies can be assembled by ones own means. Everybody knows that the solar panels widely in use in states like California get broken quite frequently and the users are in a thrust to sell them off. A buyer can purchase them at a cheaper rate. It will be surprising to find that such “broken” panels though not fully operative, will continue to supply energy required for a home, without any extra-expenditure.

2) Another economy measure is to build ones own solar panel after acquiring individual solar batteries from sources like eBay or local store. From an eBay search, one can trace hundreds of people trading in broken or chipped solar cells. With such cheaply acquired solar cells it is easy to assemble ones own solar panel, that too at a low cost.

3) There is a false notion that with the installation of solar panels, the electricity bills can be totally eliminated. This may be varying according to areas. One region may get plenty of sunlight while others may not.

Despite plenty of sunlight, some houses may be situated under thick trees, roofs or other obstructions blocking the light. But still, sunlight for 5 to 6 hours will be adequate for a solar panel to supply energy that is enough to save on electricity bills.

4) People most often falsely think that the electricity bills can be totally eliminated on installation of a solar panel. This is not true and what is required before solar installations is, to have a correct assessment on average energy consumption of a house in kilowatts, by referring to previous electricity bills.

As a general rule, most of the homes may need solar panels with a capacity of at least 2000 watts or more, in order to achieve a significant reduction in electricity bills. That would require a few hundreds to thousand individual solar cells and more number of solar panels, all much cheaper to buy from eBay.



5) Another misconception is that Do It Yourself (DIY) solar installations, may get easily disassembled unlike the professionally installed ones, which is never true. Solar panels need greater attention in maintenance. In order not to enter the water inside the panels, the holes may need sealing with silicone.

Similarly, the cells require to be covered with flexi-glass to the border. The solar panels should be cleaned annually and the wirings checked to make sure that the system runs properly and is always free of moisture inside. With such proper maintenance measures, the life span of a solar panel can be certainly extended.

Breaking Down A Home Solar Power System Costing




Many people wrongly believe that installing a solar power system at home is an expensive affair. In fact, setting up a medium capacity solar power generator will not cost as much as you fear.

Advancement in technology and improvements in material have brought down the cost of installing solar systems at home considerably. If you can spare around $1500, you can easily set a small solar power generator up at your home. It may not meet all your home power needs but will be quite sufficient to work most of your home appliances like TV and computer which need less electricity to function.

You can also recharge the batteries of your cell phone and laptop. Cost of installing a solar system increases when you employ professionals to do the work for you. It is not a very complicated and highly technical work and you can do it yourself so that you don’t have to pay the labor charges.

Everything you need to install solar panels at your home can be bought from the local stores. Or there are online stores where you can buy the supplies from. You also need a convenient place like your roof or window to set up the solar panels.

Choose a place that gets the maximum sunlight. Once the different components are connected by wires, you are all set and ready to go. Let us start with the most important component of the solar system. It is the solar panel and you can buy an average sized solar panel for about $200.

The panel you buy must be capable of producing at least 12 volts of electricity but a 16 volt panel will be ideal for your home. Foldable solar panels supplied by PowerFilm are more convenient than others. The next costly item you have to buy is a rechargeable battery. It must be a deep cycle battery like the one you use in your car.

A 12 volt battery can be bought from local auto parts store at a cost of $60. Of course, gel batteries will cost very high but they last longer. A battery box, which can be bought for about $30, will not only keep your children and pets away from the battery but will also help you to fix some other components of the solar system onto it.

You will also need a DC volt meter to check whether the battery is being charged or not. This item will cost $30 and can be bought locally. The next item to be bought is the DC inlet which will help you to plug in your DC home appliances. Since you will have a number of appliances which work on DC, let there be three or four sockets on the inlet. It will cost approximately $20. To convert DC into AC to work some of your appliances, you need to buy an inverter.



The capacity of the inverter depends on the number of appliances you are going to use and their power demands. A 300 watt inverter will just suffice. The inverter will cost another $40. Once all the necessary parts are bought and made ready, the only remaining work is to join them with wires. Positive and negative terminals of the solar panel are connected respectively to the battery.

Then connect the volt meter and the DC inlet to the battery. Power supply to the inverter can be taken either directly from the battery or from one of the DC inlet sockets. The battery box will serve as a convenient place to install your DC inlet, inverter and volt meter. Now your solar system is ready to produce solar energy and you can be proud of it.