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.

The author’s home boasts numerous large south-facing windows that enable passive solar heating of the entire house, even in single-digit temps. In the early 1980s, an American energy crisis had passed ...

Following the first energy crisis in 1973 there was a rush to heat homes with the sun. It was a tinkerer's paradise, with all manner of solar heating systems migrating from garage workshops to ...

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 ...

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 ...

Do you enjoy coming home to a warm home in the dead of winter? Do you leave your furnace running in cold weather even if no one’s home? If you want to keep the house warm for when you return later in ...

If you have large, south-facing windows, you may already be using solar power in your house. If the windows turn a room into a sauna in the summer and a fridge in the winter, some touchups can lower ...

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 ...

Dear Jim: We have a large family and use much hot water. I cannot afford to have a solar water heating system installed, but I would like to make some type of solar water heater myself. What do you ...

Researchers at Sohag University in Egypt have developed a passive cooling system for solar panels that uses a PCM known as paraffin wax RT-42. PCMs can absorb, store and release large amounts of ...

It won't be long before winter hits us again, and I promised myself last year that we'd do what we could to our home to make it more comfortable this year. It stayed cold indoors all last winter, and ...

Researchers from the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia have developed a new passive technology to keep solar panels cool. They claim their new tech can ...