- Bronze
- Hartford Green
- Natural Clay
- White
- Black
- Sandstone
In addition, we stock Mill Aluminum (unfinished).
Clear Anodized, Dark Bronze Anodized, custom color matches, and flouropolymer finishes are available for an additional charge.
Copper, Stainless Steel, and simulated Lead coated Copper cladding options are available for an additional charge.
Actual colors may vary. Color chips are available upon request.
Passive Solar
Solar Innovations, Inc’s conservatories, sunrooms, greenhouses, and fenestration products provide many unique benefits to our customers:extended living space, aesthetic appeal, home value, custom designs, and health and wellness. With the impending 2009 - 2010 deregulation of electricity industry (http://www.puc.state.pa.us/Home.aspx), passive solar energy, one of SI’s product benefits, has been brought to the forefront of the consumers’ minds.
There are many forms of energy available to society today: fossil fuels, biofuels, active solar energy, and passive solar energy. Solar Innovations, Inc. is moving towards the active solar energy industry, as a compliment to its 10 years of experience in the passive solar energy field. This form of solar energy allows customers to design systems which utilize solar energy as efficiently as possible without any moving parts (pumps, fans, or motorized insulation) and can supply heat and/or light in nearly any glazed structure.
Building orientation, insulation, and proper planning all
help to control how and where the energy is available.
Although some of our customers may not be ready to incorporate active solar energy into their homes, there are several passive solar considerations that can be easily enhance the structure’s function with minor planning: placement of glazing for lighting and heating.
Solar lighting’s effectiveness is determined by the position and orientation of windows, sloped glass, and glazed doors. These items should be determined by how much light is desired in each location of the building and heat loss or gain through the glazing. There are many factors to consider other than solar light and heat, such as landscaping and topography, views desired from within the building, door locations for easy egress and access to parking.
Passive solar heating requires windows that are sized for the energy needs of building. The glass square footage can vary from 10% to 100% of the floor area, depending on the location, insulation, shape and orientation of the rest of the building. For best results an optimum structure ratio of length, width, and height should be reached for a given building shape and solar light and heat gain requirements.
Landscaping can also provide passive shading, minimizing heat gain and cooling expenses. Deciduous trees to the southeast and southwest of the building will shade in the summer and let the light through in the winter. This does not work to the south, since the trees would have to be too close to the building. Evergreens can be planted for permanent shade to the east and west. The sun is low in the sky at sunrise and sunset, both winter and summer, so the shadows are long and the trees can be farther away.
Another passive solar option to consider is a solar chimney. With a little planning, a solar chimney can assist with ventilation and cooling allowing for considerable energy savings.
ACHIEVING PASSIVE SOLAR ENERGY BENEFITS
To achieve the benefits of passive solar energy, customers should consider incorporating the following suggestions into their structure.
- The largest amount of glazing should be on the south facing wall of the structure. To provide balanced heating and lighting, passive solar buildings are longer in the east-west direction, to maximize the southern windows. Southern, double-paned windows gain more energy on a winter day than they lose through the glass.
- South facing windows can be large, both for light and winter heat. Incorporating an overhang that shades the windows from direct sunlight in the summer and allows full sunlight to enter in the winter will be most beneficial to the energy flow. Shading of south facing windows is important to prevent overheating in the summer.
- East and west windows should be smaller, and are used to provide. East facing windows get sunshine deep into a room early in the morning and none after noon. West facing windows get sunshine deep into a room late in the evening and none before noon.
- The north wall of a passive solar building usually has few or no windows. North facing windows get direct sunlight only briefly in the morning and the evening during the summer months.
- North windows only loose energy in the winter. They can be important for summer ventilation, but they should be small.
- Incorporating south facing skylights, called clerestories, can provide light to rooms placed on the northern side of the main structure which do not have an east or west wall.
- Skylights can gather sunlight all year, and are a good choice when lighting is the primary design consideration, such as for rooms in the center of large buildings.