Solar site survey: The first step to going solar and the winter Solstice is the time to do it.

While designing for solar, a solar site survey is the first step. This is the point in which you can determine just how much or little solar potential a site has. If you are considering going solar, now is the time for this survey. The winter solstice has just past and the sun is at it's lowest elevation of the year and also the shortest day of the year. ( in the northern hemisphere) No need for charts or tools, just go outside and observe how much sun reaches your home or site over the next day or two. If the sun strikes your target from 10am-2pm, at this time of the year, you have good solar potential. More is obviously better, but this is the goal you should be shooting for. If you wish to do this at any other time of the year a solar site survey is recommended. Here is a good resource for many of the tools needed to do this yourself. http://www.builditsolar.com/SiteSurvey/site_survey.htm

Don't forget about magnetic declination, this is where your compass is not pointing true north. To avoid the problems associated with declination, I prefer the solar noon method for determining true north south.

I used this during the summer and shadow cast was not as long as I had hope for. If I had done this now, during the winter solstice, the shadow cast would have been much longer. This is the best method for getting a true north/south line, all you need is the time, a long level and/or board, and the time of solar noon, the half way point between sunrise and sunset for any given day. For more accurate info check here:
http://www.srrb.noaa.gov/highlights/sunrise/sunrise.html . If you don't know your longitude and latitude, I like google earth, this allows you to zoom right in on your location and get the exact numbers.

If your thinking adding any kind of solar to your home or business, now is the time to do a quick survey to determine if solar is right for you, you may have more solar potential than you think, use all of it to your advantage. Don't forget the sun doesn't send you a bill each month and rises each day with new energy for you to harness and use.



Tom Pittsley

http://www.eebt.org/

ecobuilder@aol.com

To LEED or to lead, that is the question?

I have chosen to lead rather than LEED. For those who read this and don't know what LEED means, this is the USGBC rating system for green buildings and stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. This organization and has brought green building to the forefront and set standards for all different kinds of buildings. The guidelines they give, help people not familiar with green building, the tools needed to fully understand green building. The problem I see with the LEED system is the costs associated with it. I carefully considered having my current project rated under this system, but the cost were less than appealing. To have the home, that I am currently building rated would have cost $3,000 , just for the verification process. This does not include the time I would have to spend compiling all the paperwork involved. I concluded that, the money was better spend in improvements to the building. What does having you home rated mean anyway? I gives you bragging rights. That's it!! no big tax credit, no discounts or rebates, nothing more than bragging rights.

As for myself, I know how green this house is, the energy bills next year will speak for themselves. The money I saved by reducing the waste on the job site just makes plain good sense. Not just from the green building aspect, but makes good business sense, to save nearly $1,000 in disposal fees, let alone the amount of labor to handle all the waste.

For me green building is a lot of things rolled in to one, but it all starts with energy. No matter how environmentally friendly the products you use are, if you have to ship them half way around the world this is not green building. If they consume more energy in the production than they save in the building, this is not green building. If they are great for the environment but only last a few years, this is not green building. If working with and installing this product takes 3 times as long at 3 times the cost and adds no energy savings, this is not green. New green products are jumping onto the market on a daily basis, but you have to ask the question? What does green mean to me. We all have a different perspective on what green building means, the guidelines given by the USGBC are great to keep us all thinking in the same direction.



As for myself I chose to lead by example rather than spend money on bragging rights. The cost of building will be less and the energy bills at the end of each year will reflect the choices made. LEED if you must, but lead any way you can.