When it comes to heating costs, most of us are not lucky enough to live in a temperate area with a constant year-round climate, and instead have to contend with winter heating bills that can be exceptionally high. When evaluating alternative home heating, an option that is often overlooked is passive solar heating. You not only save money, but energy as well.

Even on those truly frigid days in the dead of winter, the sun still emits a noticeable amount of heat. The only factor that precludes the accumulated snow from melting is the long night and short daylight period. Wouldn't it be nice if you could use the sun's heat when it's available without needing to significantly modify your house?

Here is where the Trombe wall comes in. This wall is made of a thermal mass (such as concrete or stone) that can store the heat built up during the day, and then release it slowly throughout both the night and day. On the outside the wall is insulated by a glass pane and an airspace, thus preventing the loss of heat to the outside during the night. A shade rests above the glass that allows direct light exposure during low winter sun, but acts as a protection during prolonged high summer sun heat, this dual action helps keep cooling bills in the summer low also.

Unless you are doing major renovations to your home, it may not be easy to retrofit your house for passive solar heating. However designing a custom home is very expensive, and so is implementing other energy efficient measures, such as radiant heating. The advantage of passive solar is that once installed, it costs almost nothing to use as opposed to the other alternatives.

You should also think about how the Trombe wall was invented in the 19th century, and became popular in the 1960's. This wall has been installed in many existing homes. If you want a new, energy efficient home, you can still consider older designs because they can be green as well.

The ideas being pushed in the mainstream do work, but people have been looking for ways to save money for years. It's just now that people are becoming more environmentally conscious and the cost of heating has risen so much that we are starting to look back at the clever solutions like passive solar heating that our ancestors used to save scarce resources, and use them instead to help save the planet.