Incorporating solar energy into your home

A green house is also a healthy house—the two go hand in hand. When you decide to make your house greener, you are making a decision that affects not only your own household but the wider environment as well. "Going green" means making your home as energy efficient as possible, treating all resources as precious rather than something to be thoughtlessly squandered, and in lots of small but important ways, reducing your impact on a fragile planet.

Saving energy makes sense
Many of the principles of an ecologically sound house also make economical sense. A house that has been designed to be energy efficient should also be a naturally comfortable one. Building a house from scratch allows you to situate, orient, and shelter the building to make the best of renewable sources of energy. Ideally, living spaces should face north in the Southern Hemisphere (and South in the Northern Hemisphere) to take greatest advantage of the sun for light and warmth in both summer and winter. If you are renovating or extending an existing house, consult an environmental architect to discuss options for low-energy designs.

Even if you are not planning to build, consider a few energy-efficient principles:
• Use the sun and wind where possible for energy, relying less on supplementary, nonrenewable energy. This can be as simple as drying your clothes on a clothesline rather than using your dryer.
• Think of the local environment: plant native trees and flowers, compost organic wastes, garden organically, and use natural pest control. Use low-flow or waterless toilets, and collect, store, and use rainwater.
• Use green materials and products. The green ideal is to use nontoxic, nonpolluting products—which are biodegradable or easily reused and recycled—from sustainable and renewable sources, produced with low energy and low environmental and social costs.
• Paint the exterior of a house with light-colored paint to help reflect unwanted radiant heat.
• Shade all windows when it's warm or hot. Windows are a main entry point for heat and light—highly desirable in winter, but potentially overheating in summer. Consider ways of shading windows in the summertime—for example, with awnings and deciduous trees.
• Create a healthy indoor climate by allowing the house to breathe. Use natural materials and processes to regulate the temperature, humidity, and air flow.
• If you live in a hot climate, open up and ventilate the house at night when the air is cooler.
• Allow sunlight and daylight to penetrate your home and rely less on artificial lighting.