Home & Garden...

During the second half of last week we looks at tips for buying the perfect land for your green home. This week, we'll look at a couple of the tips up close. Eventually we'll look at all the tips more in-depth, but it won't all happen at once, because that would be a little dull, no? It's nice to mix things up.

As noted in the previous tips post, choose land that's open to the south - if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. This should ideally provide you with good strong solar access for the bulk of the day.

Avoid heavily wooded or otherwise shrouded from the sun land. I.e the path from the sun to your home needs to be unobstructed. Consider if natural structures like mountains are going to block your solar access and also man-made structures like other homes. Don't forget to think ahead to future developments that could block the sun.

Don't orientate your home towards a beautiful lake, or the twinkling lights of country homes, instead of towards the sun. Scenery is nice, but lower electric bills are priceless - not to sound like a credit card, but it's true. Solar can't work as hard for you when you face your home away from the sun.

If you've heard the term passive cooling in conjunction with solar, and are worried that facing the sun will do you in during the summer, relax; good solid solar design actually works as a passive cooling design. More of the passive cooling designs you'll be thinking about have to do with your actual home vs. the land. If you're working with a good designer, or are a good designer yourself, you'll do well with the passive cooling issue.

You really do need to map your sunlight on your potential land. There's too much to this concept to go over here, we'd be discussing it for the next year or so. Also, this can be a big undertaking if you want to do it right. When I was building a passive solar home the most helpful book I found on sun mapping was The Natural House. Author Daniel D. Chiras basically walks you through what to do from start to finish. He utilizes helpful diagrams as well.

Chiras actually recommends that if soar mapping sounds too complicated that you can hire a solar designer or builder for help. Honestly though, I knew very little about truly mapping land for solar and this book made it easy I thought. (And believe me I'm not a technical type).

Software to help you calculate solar angles.

A great list of books that can help you plan what you'll need to consider when building for solar power.