Find the best solar options for your home and budget. Find the best solar options for your home and budget. Since ancient times, people have found ways to use the sun’s heat to stay warm or keep cool.

Passive solar architecture is a design strategy that optimizes a building’s energy efficiency and long-term sustainability. By relying on a building site’s solar orientation and climate, sustainable ...

Q. I feel the sun shining in a living room window and it's very warm. My budget is pretty tight, but I want to make or install something to capture that heat and lower my heating bills. What do you ...

Now that the winter solstice, the shortest daylight day of the year, is behind us I’m reminded of how important it is to let the sunshine into our lives. There are many benefits to having large ...

Heating houses is a major energy suck. Behind passenger cars and trucking, it’s the largest energy draw in the United States. But it turns out homeowners looking to stay warm don’t need to rely just ...

As I discussed in last week’s column ("Resilience: Dramatically Better Building Envelopes," Jan. 4), a resilient home is extremely well-insulated, so that it can be kept warm with very little ...

Find the best solar options for your home and budget. Find the best solar options for your home and budget. Solar thermal energy is the process of concentrating sunlight to create heat, which can be ...

What is passive solar energy, and how can passive solar be incorporated into energy efficient home designs? A natural builder shares tips on building an energy-efficient home. To me, the art of ...

The author’s home boasts numerous large south-facing windows that enable passive solar heating of the entire house, even in single-digit temps. In the early 1980s, an American energy crisis had passed ...

Dear Jim: I feel the sun shining in a living room window and it's very warm. My budget is pretty tight, but I want to make or install something to capture that heat and lower my heating bills. What do ...

As a former realtor, general contractor and greenhouse operator, Kristi has touched nearly all aspects of homeownership, from the foundation up. Today, Kristi is a full-time investing and real estate ...

Following the first energy crisis in 1973 there was a rush to heat homes with the sun. It was a tinkerer's paradise, with all manner of solar heating systems migrating from garage workshops to ...