passive design features

Do you like wasting energy? Yeah we didn’t think so. If you are in the position to design and build a new house or building, incorporating a couple of simple energy saving features in your plan can result in drastic long and short-term savings.

Today, as an installment of our insight segment, we want to present a couple instances and examples:

1)   Thermal recovery from your shower drain. Yes, you have probably heard countless times how taking long showers waste water. However, more importantly (for most people) is how taking showers results in significant loss of heat. Up to 89% of your water’s heat is simple washed down the drain. That’s a lot of your water-heating bill wasted!

However, the good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Thermal recovery systems in your water drain allow for the heat to be transferred from the wastewater into the ‘pre-heated’ water. This cuts down on your water-heating bill, not to mention makes your house more efficient. Here at EnergyGridIQ, we’re big fans of energy efficiency, so we like this design feature a lot.

On a broader note, general thermal recovery in your water and HVAC systems is a great way to reduce your net energy draw. By incorporating the same design concept throughout your house, you can expect savings upwards of 42%.

2)   House orientation. People often don’t think about it, but the way your house points makes a BIG difference on its interaction with the environment. Houses with many windows pointed south are generally warmer (in the northern hemisphere) simply due to the sun’s orientation.

At a local level, tree shadow, wind patterns, and even water runoff flow all have significant impact on how much energy your house or building uses. By taking these factors into consideration you can passively reduce your energy draw significantly.

Take, for instance, a house in a generally cold environment such as Maine. In order to cut down your heating bill you would orient the house with many windows facing to the south, and with the narrowest point of the house facing the dominant wind. This way, you are able to keep the house as warm as possible.

3)   Air conditioning units in the shade. AC units rely on compression and condensation fluid properties in order to cool down areas of a building. These properties are best taken advantage of when the outdoor (or exhaust area) temperature is cool. In order to maximize the ‘coolness’, (no problem for us at EnergyGridIQ since we’re always cool) you should place your air conditioning units in a well-shaded region of your property.

Countless other methods and techniques exist to cut back on energy draw. At EnergyGridIQ, we frequently post topics and articles on new and innovative projects that take these considerations into account. Furthermore, for those of you considering implementing some passive design features into your home, you should take a look at our incentive database. There are countless ways to save and most states and regions offer a fair amount of money for doing things as simple as insulating effectively. It pays to save.