Contact: Bruce Glenn
The Green Builder
1044 Water Street Suite 231
Port Townsend,
WA, 98368
United States
Phone: 360.385.5477
Fax: 360.385.5477
Website: http://strawbalehomes.com Scroll to the bottom of the page to send an email A solar passion
Ever since reading my first Adobe Journal Magazine in the early 70s, along with Ed Mazria’s book Passive Solar Energy Book, I have had a passion for passive solar homes and an energy-efficient lifestyle.
As a young teenager I grew up listening to my father tell stories about the adobe homes my grandfather built located California during the 1930’s just before world war II. He designed using passive heating & cooling principles. Solar design is in my blood.
Passive solar really got me excited about designing with the sun’s cycles in the midst of the first energy crisis.
In the past 30 years I’ve designed and built many different types of healthy, passive solar home structures in different climates, with the goal of reducing the heating and cooling expense by using the sun’s radiation.In sustainable designing, the first goal is to reduce the energy required to heat and cool the environment, which requires designing a super insulated envelope. Passive Solar orientation is in alignment, because it reduces the total energy requirements electrical use, lighting and heating load of the home, saving tons of air pollution created by electrical production spilling into the atmosphere. (note in Washington 40% -50 %of our electricity is generated from coal producing plants, and with the decommissioning of hydroelectric dams, the new generators will be using natural gas cleaner burning but still a fossil fuel)
Taking into account the local climate, topography, topographical location & species of trees, walking pathways, sun's pathway, natural day lighting, views, hills, possible solar obstructions and variables are mandatory in a properly designed solar home. In sustainable design, we take into account the “embodied energy factors” the energy required in the manufacturing & transporting the building materials.
It’s all about conserving the earth resources with common sense and good design practices. We love to creatively incorporate the local materials found on the land which can add to the soul & charm of any home such as; large stones, reclaimed wood, brick paver's, indigenous materials like stones, hand finihed Earth plasters & floors, straw bale walls & light straw clay , trees harvested for columns & paneling and other local salvaged building materials like doors windows.
Article cont. at strawbalehomes dot com.
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