Find the best solar options for your home and budget. Since ancient times, people have found ways to use the sun’s heat to stay warm or keep cool. They built homes from clay and other materials that ...

SOLAR HOT WATER pre-heat systems fall into two basic categories active and passive types with numerous subcategories. A passive solar DHW pre-heater is also known as a breadbox heater or batch heater.

As I discussed in last week’s column ("Resilience: Dramatically Better Building Envelopes," Jan. 4), a resilient home is extremely well-insulated, so that it can be kept warm with very little ...

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The house is cool, but most homes are these days, in the sweltering summer heat. Here, though, it should be hot. Or at least, the air-conditioning should be ...

If you have large, south-facing windows, you may already be using solar power in your house. If the windows turn a room into a sauna in the summer and a fridge in the winter, some touchups can lower ...

As a former realtor, general contractor and greenhouse operator, Kristi has touched nearly all aspects of homeownership, from the foundation up. Today, Kristi is a full-time investing and real estate ...

Passive solar is pretty simple: The solar part is obvious…it refers to the Sun. The passive part means it works without any mechanical devices, added energy inputs or efforts from the occupants. It ...

Heating houses is a major energy suck. Behind passenger cars and trucking, it’s the largest energy draw in the United States. But it turns out homeowners looking to stay warm don’t need to rely just ...

Alternatives to the toxic chemicals traditionally used for de-icing airplane wings and helicopter rotor blades have long been sought. To that end we've seen ideas like this graphene-based coating that ...