National Solar Homes Tour

Hello beautiful humans!

I had the pleasure of being invited to a really neat event recently which showcased different types of solar powered homes. This event happens every year around a community of folks that weren't too far away from me over in Blount County Alabama. The event was last Saturday and I grabbed as many photos and jotted down as much information that I could about each building type. There were two types that I believe I will explore on my land.

First up was this house, can you tell what material its primarily made from? No worries, I couldn't either at first glance, but this house is mostly wheat straw bales.

Here is a peak at the inside, the house is 2 stories with an upstairs and a basement. For being in the sunshine all the time the house stays a very nice temperature inside using very little power to run an A/C. The house is also designed to incorporate passive solar heating during the winter with south facing windows that let in light during winter. With enough overhang to keep the sun out in the summer. The east and west sides of the house are shaded to keep the sun out in the summer as well.

It uses some dc powered fans and led lighting throughout the house. The walls are coated in a white sand and cement mix for both the inside and outside.

The basement houses a cool room using a unique cooling system where they store perishable foods to keep them fresh longer. Everything in the house runs off DC power accept for the Air Conditioning I believe. The guy that built the house used to work for Alabama Power and has a lot of skills with electronics.

This is his battery storage which is a bank of sealed lead acid batteries that were used for the telephone system he was able to get from Alabama Power when he retired. The system is completely custom and playing around with these systems is his hobby.

Here's a photo of his solar array which is around 3kW if I remember correctly. He installed custom mounts so he can angle the panels to grab the most sun during the changes of seasons.

They also employ these neat solar ovens to cook certain meals.

This house was by far one of my favorites on this tour. I will post up the other four in the following days so I may do justice in explaining each houses design.

Thanks for checking out this post.

Tell me what you think in the comments and share around with anyone interested in this type of thing.

Yours in liberty toward a brighter future,
Greg Doud @makinstuff

Posted using Partiko Android