A greenhouse is a great idea if you have room on your property. There are pros & cons to having a greenhouse attached to your home. On the pro side, it can heat the rest of your home w/ passive solar heating (but there are other ways to heat your home better, I think, as mentioned in Mark’s book). The disadvantage to having a greenhouse attached to your home is that there are always garden pests that get in the greenhouse, and then can easily get into your home. I’ve been in greenhouses in the summer and they’re very hot & humid, almost unbearable. A small greenhouse or sunroom attached to your home probably wouldn’t be as humid. Having a door between the greenhouse and house might also help if it gets too humid in your home. You would also have to keep the solar panels clear to get the benefit of the solar heating.
For more information on greenhouses attached to houses, do a web search (“benefits of greenhouse attached to house”).
There are also many good books on greenhouses and gardening, including Gaia’s Garden, Bioshelter Market Garden, The Year-Round Walipini, and more.
Planting deciduous trees on the west and south sides of your home help shade your home in the summer to cut down on air conditioning costs and and let heat into your home in winter when the leaves are all gone.
A green roof is a good option to help keep your home at the optimal temperature all year long If you have the money to reinforce your roof.
Concrete homes and earth-sheltered homes also keep your home at an even temperature all year long if you haven’t already built your home.
You might also consider a cool tower and a rocket stove.
The ideas in Mark’s book are great and should be implemented for energy efficiency and conservation.
-Gail, BSc, M.G.
Comments
Gail, good points. Obviously you are very knowledgeable on the subject. I thought about the bugs before and assumed people would do what many do with a greenhouse and purchase ladybugs and praying mantis eggs to deal with the problem. Attached greenhouses can definitely be utilized to put heat into the house in the winter but in the summer I highly recommend putting pipe(s) in the apex of the greenhouse and running a refrigerant thru them, paired to the hot ground storage, to both cool down the greenhouse and heat up the ground to use in winter. Unfortunately, I studied greenhouses 40 years ago. I should have studied the books you mentioned before I wrote my book. A green roof is superb thinking and much more common in Europe than in the U.S. I wish I would have mentioned that in my book. Rocket stoves are a really cool appliance and many survivalists use them for their portability and super high efficiency. They can easily get over 1000 degrees (538 C) but need almost constant attention since the twigs burn up fast. With a little good engineering I think someone could find a way to automatically and slowly feed the twigs into the rocket stove using the heat of the fire to do so. Haven't given it any thought before, maybe an engineering student could take on the project. Thank you for your response.
I forgot to mention that you can use the heat in the greenhouse to preheat the attic with the same pipes. Just don't try to preheat the attic directly with the hot air of the greenhouse because that would put a hell of a lot of humidity in the attic, and you don't want that.