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Hi I’m Ralph Somers, moderator of Ralph’s Green Energy Guide. Many homes are now designed to take advantage of passive solar heating given today’s energy concerns. Solar thermal is a critical part of this process.

How Thermal Mass Works In Your Home

Getting a little free heating can go a long way on your utility bill, particularly over the life of a structure. The method to achieve this goal is passive solar heating. It is a process wherein a home is built or upgraded in such a way as to catch and contain as much of the sunlight in the form of heat as possible. You need to understand thermal mass before you can effectively use solar for heating. You can learn enough to build a renewable energy technology system like thermal mass here.

Thermal mass simply refers to any material that absorbs and stores heat. In this case, we are referring to the material that contains the heat inherent in the sunlight and releases it afer the sunlight is no longer reaching it. You may not realize it, but your home already has thermal mass producing heat. Thermal mass can be any material that is exposed to sunlight like furniture or the floor. Unfortunately, it is usually on a pretty small scale.

A passive solar home will often have materials that are highly effective at heat absorption and radiation called intentional thermal mass. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. The materials include items such as bricks, tile and masonry. Adobe and clay are also good options in certain situations.

In a passive solar home, you need the thermal mass in the interior of the home. If you put tile and brick in areas of high sun exposure, this will a lot of times do the trick. The amount of thermal mass you will use is determined by your heating needs. In colder parts of the world, it should be used in abundance whereas homes in Arizona only need nominal amounts.

The color of the thermal material is one common misunderstanding. A logical conclusion would be that the materials need to be dark because dark colors absorb more heat. This is not particularly true in passive solar. It isn’t the color that makes the difference but the color. Of all the light colors, bricks cannot be white. It might seem unimportant but it may be a huge plus if you want to avoid a dark, gloomy interior in your home.

If you are trying to harness the power of the sun for heating purposes, you need to get a good grasp of the thermal products you will use. This should give you a head start.

~Ralph

Moderator of Ralph’s Green Energy Guide

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