Man Heats 4,000 Sq. Ft Home for $2.50 Per Day Using Passive Solar Technology
Why spend lots of money heating your house when nature can do it for you? Upstate New York resident John Kosmer has taken passive solar to a new level in his home, which only costs $2.50 a day to heat. That’s less than $1,000 a year of heating expenses in an area of the country that gets mauled with snow multiple times a year.
Kosmer worked with Building With Integrity and Adirondack Alternative Energy to construct his passive solar house. Four-inch thick rigid polyurethane is installed on the exterior walls and under the roof, while pre-finished concrete siding covers the exterior of the home.
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But the real key to Kosmer’s low heating costs is his windows. 53 vinyl-framed Simonton windows are strategically placed throughout the house, letting sunlight into the white interior of the structure.
A wood stove also rises multiple stories into the atrium, where heated air is carried up into grilles in the attic ductwork. The air is then redistributed throughout the house, which stays at a temperature of 68 degrees.
A project of this magnitude may be out of your reach if you live in a 100 year-old poorly-insulated home, but it’s worth considering if you’re on the hunt for a new house.
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Living in San Francisco, I heat my home for $0 per day. I live in a loft downtown, and the waste heat from the ‘fridge and other appliances is enough to keep us toasty right through the winter. Then again, it’s not quite 4000sqft (how green is that size home, anyway?)
So he heats his entire house with $2.50 of wood in his wood stove?
Not trying to be a downer but I do wonder how long the addition costs take to break even with the low heating costs. I know the price is going to start to exponentially drop as more people buy these due to economies of scale… But in the right now is what I wonder.
It still may be out of reach for those of us with a newer house too.
How many decades until it pays for itself, then?
I heat my 1800 square foot home located in northern Indiana for $2.36/day with NATURAL GAS. What this man has done is not that impressive cost-wise, nor environmentally when you figure in all the resources consumed to make all his windows, polyurethane insulation, and concrete siding. Not to mention he’s burning TREES.
Is anyone else getting tired of over-hyped environmental propaganda??
Did I mention my home is 138 years old, where his is of new construction… thereby using even MORE environmental resources?
Smithsonian and others should republish this article and ask the TV station to tell this story repeated to the general public. Evey one can benefit from this news.
Thanks
Any word on initial cost though? Seems like he poured in a lot of $$$ to save later on.
“Not to mention he’s burning TREES.”
The difference is that trees are a renewable resource. Its not as if hes pulling the wood from the rain forest.
$2.50 does not seem all that good to me either maybe that price INCLUDES amortization of his excess cost to impliment it?
What is not said is the $2000 a year that it costs to run his air conditioning in the summer.