Author Question: Design a house with the goal to limit its heating and cooling costs. What will be an ideal ... (Read 102 times)

schs14 · **on:** Jul 13, 2018

Design a house with the goal to limit its heating and cooling costs.
What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Explain why South
What will be an ideal response?ern Hemisphere summers are not warmer than Northern Hemisphere summers.

AISCAMPING · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 13, 2018

Answer to Question 1

ANSWER: Student answers should state that large windows should face south, allowing sunshine to penetrate the home in winter. To block out excess sunlight during the summer, a small eave or overhang should be built. A kitchen with windows facing east will let in enough warm morning sunlight to help heat this area. Because the west side warms rapidly in the afternoon, rooms having small windows (such as garages) can be placed here to act as a thermal buffer. Deciduous trees planted on the west or south side of a home provide shade in the summer. In winter, they drop their leaves, allowing the winter sunshine to warm the house. If you like the bedroom slightly cooler than the rest of the home, face it toward the north. Let nature help with the heating and air conditioning. Proper house design, orientation, and landscaping can help cut the demand for electricity, as well as for natural gas and fossil fuels, which are rapidly being depleted. From our reading of the last several sections, it should be apparent that, when solar heating a home, proper roof angle is important in capturing much of the winter Sun's energy.

Answer to Question 2

ANSWER: We know Earth comes nearer to the Sun in January than in July. Even though this difference in distance amounts to only about 3 percent, the energy that strikes the top of Earth's atmosphere is almost 7 percent greater on January 3 than on July 4. These statistics might lead us to believe that summer should be warmer in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemisphere, which, however, is not the case. A close examination of the Southern Hemisphere reveals that nearly 81 percent of the surface is water compared to 61 percent in the Northern Hemisphere. The added solar energy due to the closeness of the Sun is absorbed by large bodies of water, becoming well mixed and circulated within them. This process keeps the average summer (January) temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere cooler than summer (July) temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere. Because of water's large heat capacity, it also tends to keep winters in the Southern Hemisphere warmer than we might expect.