The Solar Home [antikvár]

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 fuel—either 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 company—is 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 winter—slightly 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 heat—perhaps more than we think— XI