Can You Go Green With Your Energy

Everybody is trying to do their part to go green. The amount that a person does is not the same as everyone else. The sun is one of the most valuable resources we can use. They are going about adding the solar panels to power their home in many ways including building a solar panel for those who are handy enough to do it on their own. It is possible for the typical homeowner to do some things to harness this power.
There are many systems to choose that are passive in nature. There are a lot of options to choose from to accomplish this. It is basically using direct sunlight to reduce the amount of electricity or fuel you need to use to heat or cool your home. When it is cold outside, you can harness the power of the sun to make it warmer in your home. During the hotter months it is possible to deflect the energy of the sun so as to keep the house cooler and thus lower your electric usage.
There are some issues to consider to help create the passive solar environment and a search of the internet with the keyword greendiyenergy can provide a person with a wonderful resource as they stat their path to less energy dependence. Some suggestions they will find include lots of windows on the south side of the house, with fewer windows on the other sides. You want lots of thermal mass, block, brick, and tile, on the south side of the house so it can be struck directly by the sun in the wintertime. The thermal mass absorbs and stores the heat energy during the day and then radiates it back into the living space as night falls and the interior temperature begins to cool. Some of the variables in this are the size of the home and the average temperature in the area. This can be calculated by multiplying the amount of glass in a house by a factor of six to see how much mass is required. A person is going to have to deal with the issue that what is good to warm the house is not good fro keeping it cooler. The best way for a person to deal with this is to find out what is the correct overhang that is required for their roof. By using this in combination with other things like the use of shade trees and window shades a person can control the amount of sun that a home gets in the summer.
One thing that a person can do to make their home more efficient is to install proper windows. Look for low-e windows with a low U factor in your windows. Not all window manufacturers make windows with this combination of characteristics, so do your homework and shop around. Don’t trust products that say they can simply make existing window better.
As important as windows our, the covering is just as important. A person does not have to sacrifice design for good insulation when they make their choices. Go for light colors so you still get plenty of daylight with the shades down. By using sunlight to brighten your house you will lessen the need for other sources of light. During the winter, keep the shades up when the sun is shining on the windows and mostly down at other times. During the summer, in theory, you would want to keep the shades down all the time since they not only help reject sunlight but also improve the R value of the window.
The idea behind this type of energy is finding the best of both worlds. It is about doing some things over others to get the most out of your home. For more information person must do their research to decide what is right for them by turning to things such as greendiyenergy review to find out what others have done to lower their dependence on the utility companies and do their best to help the environment.