A few sunny days...

Brent and I have been enjoying the free heat that a few days of sunshine provided and learning a lot about how our passive solar house performs. As the temperatures plummeted after Christmas the sun came out. Other than the glare, there is little to complain about in a home like this one. Each sunny day raised the temperature in the house 10 degrees.

Our mornings would start at about 65 degrees and by around 2:00 p.m. the temperature inside would be over 75. We resisted the urge to open windows on those days, knowing that heat would carry us through the night. On sunny days the only heat that runs is the hydronic floor heat. And that comes on only when the temperature in the house falls below 70 in the pre-dawn hours. And so, the lower level of the house stays a consistent temperature while the upper (above grade) level fluctuates.

We are learning new things daily. And Doogle (our beagle-ish dog) is enjoying his favorite thing…napping in the sun. Okay, it's really his second-favorite thing to do. His first is eating :-)

Doogle snoozing in the sun on our heated floor.