More Solar Access in Denver

Chris Kennel, a thoughtful resident of Southeast Denver, recently submitted his thoughts to Doug Linkhart on the solar access issue:

"At the Thursday Nov. 19 council meeting I spoke with some advocates of solar access because I plan to install a photoelectric array on my roof and am curious about their ideas. Every solar access advocate I spoke with seemed well-meaning, but I didn't find that any of them had thoroughly considered the implications of their plans. That is why I have chosen to write this letter to you.

The four types of solar access that I heard the solar access advocates describe were:

1) passive solar (sunlight entering windows of their homes)
2) solar hot water panels
3) gardening
4) solar electric (photovoltaic) panels

Each of these solar uses functions differently at different times of the year and therefore has different requirements in terms of access to the sun. This means that a one size fits all approach would either not address each area appropriately or be totally overkill for some areas.

Lets look at each area, starting with the most restrictive one: passive solar. Passive solar, used for heating and lighting is most beneficial when the sun is low in the sky in the winter. In the summer, passive solar is unwanted since it adversely affects indoor comfort and raises the cooling costs of a home. If people want direct sunlight in their first story windows during the winter months, then it
would preclude the design of most of our existing city blocks. In the morning during the winter months, the sun is so low in the sky that an object 2 feet high will cast a shadow 10 feet long at 8 am in the morning. At noon, when the sun is highest, the same shadow would be created by an object that's about 5 feet tall. This means that if someone has a window on their first floor, the roof or gable of neighboring single story house that's 10 feet away to the south would very likely shade its
neighbor to the north. To get unobstructed winter light into a house at noon would require the neighbor's house to be located at least 20 feet away if it's a single story. For morning light, the neighbor would have to be about 40 feet away, and this gets even larger if the southern neighbor's home is a two story.

The second most restrictive solar access issue is rooftop solar hot water panels since these are often used for winter heating. For solar panels, the sun is most effective between 10 am and 2 pm. Two single story houses would be fine close to each other as long as the southern neighbor doesn't have a gable facing the north neighbor. If the southern neighbor has a gable or a second story it would
have to be about 26 feet away from its single story neighbor to avoid shading the rooftop panels during part or all of the 10 am to 2 pm timeframe. If the southern neighbor has a two story gable roof facing the north then it would have to be about 40 feet away.

The third most restrictive solar access issue is gardening. This activity usually happens during the summer months when the sun is higher in the sky, and most sun-loving plants like tomatoes require about 8 hours of sunlight per day to thrive. A single story house would cast a 15 foot shadow and a 2 story house would cast a 25 foot shadow during parts of this timeframe. For gables facing north add another 7 feet to these numbers. People with large lots should be fine, but narrow lots would
receive too much shade for the most sun-loving plants. People with narrow lots could grow plants that tolerate partial shade since from 10 am to 2 pm the shadows from the worst case scenario, a two story house with gable would only cast a 14 foot long shadow.

The most flexible solar access issue is photovoltaic panels. These panels function most effectively in the summer months when the sun is more direct and intense. During the winter months, their output is substantially reduced, so winter solar access shouldn't be over prioritized. Photovoltaics function best from 10 am to 2 pm, and it's unlikely that even a two story neighbor would shade the roof of a single story house to the north during this timeframe in the summer. The more likely
source of shading is from a chimney on the homeowner's own house or a tree. Photovoltaic panels have a weakness in that if any part of a single panel gets shaded, it knocks out the entire panel and in many cases the entire array or branch circuit. Even a leafless deciduous tree in the winter can cast enough of a shadow to knock out a photovoltaic panel. So if photovoltaic panels are given some special status with regard to solar access then it may result in severe tree pruning and even removal, especially to the city's larger and older trees.

Since trees have many benefits, it seems important to exempt them from any rules regarding solar access. Otherwise neighbors will be trying to trim the trees that other neighbors or the city (via parks and greenbelts) own. Even at my house I have some trees that cast shadows over 100 feet long during the winter months, and my trees are only medium sized. I live in a suburban neighborhood so these trees don't affect my neighbors much, but medium sized and larger trees in an urban neighborhood could conceivably cast shadows across four or more lots.

Although solar access sounds nice in theory, creating solar access rules in excess of our current bulk planes is certain to cause a lot of problems. For the group of of Denver residents who place a premium on solar access (and I am one of them), the best and easiest solution is to choose a site that has a park, street, drainage ditch, or other form of undeveloped open space to the south. A second option is to buy a house that's located on the northern most part of its lot.

Not all homes in Denver are equal in many regards, and solar access shouldn't be viewed as a right but rather as a feature. Although I might like my suburban house to be within 5 blocks of a light rail station, a park as good as Washington Park, a bike path, stream, and an excellent coffee house, I can't expect the city to give me all these things. Solar access is similar. Solar access is a function of location, topography, and the direction a home is pointed. As such it has value to some people, but it cannot be equal throughout all of Denver.

For people who do not want to move to a home that has good solar access, there are alternatives. Instead of photovoltaic panels, they can buy renewable power through Xcel energy's wind source program. People who want fresh, local produce can join a CSA (community supported agriculture), participate in a community garden, or visit the farmers' markets instead of planting their own gardens. If someone suffers from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) in the winter they can buy a light therapy box (my wife and I have one and it works great) instead of relying on passive solar light.
Lastly, people who want to reduce their heating costs can better winterize their homes as an alternative to using solar hot water panels or passive solar designs. Better winterization will also make a house more comfortable and energy efficient in the summer. All of these are good options for people who do not have the guaranteed solar access they wish for. It's likely that they've chosen where they live due to other redeeming factors.

Thank you also for your hard work on the rezoning project.

Sincerely,
Chris Kennel"

Lots of good common sense from Chris.

Note: As Douglas Farr and myself have been advocating, the best place for your photovoltaic system is on a two story garage on the alley. Xcel energy is already trimming the trees back there to protect the power lines. The most likely source of shade will then be a pine tree to the south. Try to get an agreement with that neighbor to allow you to prune that tree as required. If he won't grant permission for free, offer some money for a solar easement. You'll eventually earn all that money back and more.

Solar Access for Denver Neighborhoods

The Denver Zoning Code has been rewritten, and is on the verge of release for public comment. The issue of Solar Access has been put on hold for at least a few months. This is understandable, as the release of a large, important document like this is very difficult.

Unfortunately, solar systems are being built in Denver with no protections against shading from neighbors.

For more, please see read this document:

Solar Access for Denver Neighborhoods

Polymer ISC Solar Collector Debuts

Just a few days after my post about passive solar thermal water heating, the grandson of the Arthur D. Little collector design came to my attention. Called the Solar Cache by Harpiris Energy, it has been designed only for non-freezing climates. With PEX pipe, which may be considered freeze tolerant, this will be a great product for economy installations, costing far less than the usual $6k solar DHW systems for freezing climates.

I just hope it doesn't get installed in colder climates, freeze, burst and give the product a bad name. When drain-down systems were used in Denver in the 80's, many an attic was flooded because of Murphy's Law. Even though there were freeze protection controls and backup freeze protection controls, they still failed.

Ironically, a common complaint from solar DHW system owners may cause pumps to appear in these passive systems. See, most systems have a solar preheat tank (with the Sun Cache the solar tank is on the roof), and a backup (fossil fuel) tank piped downstream in series. If the homeowner doesn't consume any hot water (like all day when he's at work) then the backup tank fires to make up for standyby losses, even though the preheat tank may be 140F or higher. In the summer, a solar system should be providing 100% of the hot water load on sunny days, so some homeowners get peeved when their gas bill isn't zero and the backup tank is coming on every hour or so. A really tiny recirculating pump with a simple control is a way to prevent the problem, but now you've added a pump to an otherwise elegantly simple system. The other beef with the "uninsulated" storage tank on the roof is that you'll never have any solar hot water left for the morning shower, the storage water will drop close to outdoor ambient by morning.

Rheem has also come out with a passive collector with some freeze tolerance. The collector loop is charged with antifreeze. Again, great care should be used on the supply pipe, even in "non-freezing" climates.

Passive Solar DHW

To some, the holy grail of solar thermal is a system without pumps and controls.

Himin of China manufactures a nice one:

At Solaron in the '80's, we purchased the manufacturing rights to a passive DHW design developed by Arthur D. Little. The problem was that the pipes going to the collector would freeze in the winter. Frozen pipes in the attic were so undesirable and difficult to eliminate that we ultimately abandoned the whole project. As far as I know, no one is pursuing this type of design in northern climates.

Now that building codes are beginning to actually recommend insulated roof planes and conditioned attics, the Chinese design looks very interesting. The pipes in the attic won't freeze because the attic is inside the house envelope. As long as the piping to the roof-mounted tank is kept extremely short, it won't freeze either. Natural convection within the pipe and heat conduction along the pipe from the tank and the attic area would prevent freezing.

Note that the water in the evacuated tubes probably won't freeze.  Every day they warm up a bit even if the day is completely overcast.  This insolation should be enough to prevent freezing even under the worst conditions in Denver.

From Arthur D. Little, we also learned that the roof-mounted tank will never approach freezing temperatures anywhere in the continental US. (Basically there's enough solar insolation even on completely cloudy days to keep the tank above 40 degrees)

The main attraction of this design is that system efficiencies are far superior to pumped designs. Also, with no moving parts to fail, the life-cycle cost is held low, and the ROI is maximized.

Edit, corrections 1/10/11 (the tubes contain water, not heat pipes.)

NREL Denver Tour of Solar Homes

On Saturday, our East Wash Park home was on this year's Denver Tour of Solar Homes , sponsored by NREL.
Here's the blurb from the tour book:

Dickson Residence

This large house (4200 square feet) was completed in 2004 and is an updated version of the “Denver Square” design. The parcel was formerly a public service substation on three lots. The house uses a true direct gain passive solar design in that it has south facing glass and mass (concrete floors). Please note that the passive solar heating provides 90% of the space heating requirements – so much so that the radiant floor back up system is rarely used. If the owners were to do this again, they would install a less expensive backup system. In some places the concrete has been stained so that it is the actual floor. In other places, cork is laid over the concrete.

The house is joined to the building next door, which originally contained battery storage for the Denver Tramway system. Now the building houses an office and shop area.

The house is built using SIPs (structural insulated panels). In getting the permits for the house, the Denver plan review and inspection departments added eight months of delay in getting a building permit, according to the owner, because of their inexperience with SIPS. Greenprint Denver may be helping to alleviate the problems like this.

An interesting note is that three of the stained glass windows in the house were designed by a relative of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Passive Solar Features

Sunroom/mudroom

Mass of 2” of concrete on the floor

Trees planted on the east and west for shade control

Photovoltaic Panels

3.3 kW system

Grid tied

Utility bill has decreased $55 per month since installation

Thermal Envelope / Thermal Comfort

Insulated above code with SIPS

Low-e windows

Interior and exterior shades

Evaporative cooling (unique indoor cooler)

Expanding foam insulation around windows and outlets

Zoned heating

Night setback thermostats

Radiant floor backup heating system

Lighting

Some CFL lights

Motion sensors or timers in the mudroom and garage

Construction

6” thick SIPS walls

Thermal breaks at entry doors and perimeter of entire foundation

Pre-plumbed for solar thermal collectors

Lightweight Metal shingles

Appliances

Energy Star rated

Sealed combustion boiler/hot water heater

Transportation / Lifestyles

Hybrid SUV

50% of all errands are done by bicycle

Light rail is used once a week

Recycling

Composting

Vegetable gardening

Re-Use / Salvaged Materials / Recycle

Reclaimed brick

Reused existing building and converted into a home office from its original purpose

Unique Features

Homeowner trained in solar during the energy crisis of the 70’s

Homeowner holds patents for pneumatic fittings, valves, and a nose hair trimmer

Green Features

EPS insulation

Stained concrete floors

Reused an entire building and converted into a home office

No particle board was used

Steel roof

Cork floor

Water Features

Low flush toilets (5 out of 5)

Low flow shower heads (3 out of 3)

Xeriscaping

Drip irrigation

REC’s and Windsource

On demand hot water system: “Doorbells” in each bath summon hot water without wasting it

Solar Home on the Wash Park Home Tour

Our personal residence, a "solar Denver Square", built in 2004, is on this year's East Wash Park Home Tour.

This annual event is the biggest fundraiser for Steele Elementary.

Things to look for:
1. High SGHC glass used on the south side.
2. "Poor man's terrazo" diamond-ground and stained concrete floors for thermal mass.
3. Rare indoor swamp cooler that serves as a humidifier in the winter.
4. Infloor radiant heat.
5. On demand hot water.
6. Near-zero exterior maintenance.
7. Low-water landscaping.


MORE DETAILS:

DICKSON RESIDENCE

“The Substation House”

1491 S GAYLORD

2003-2004

Green Features

1. Site is at the south end of the block which allowed unrestricted access to the sun. (little to no shading)

2. Passive Solar : Large window area on the south walls of the house. The interior temperature swings somewhat because of the heat gain from the sun. After a sunny day the living room temperature will be 68, and early in the morning, it will be 64. A room temperature of 65 feels quite comfortable because the house isn’t drafty and the walls and windows are relatively warm compared to older homes.

3. Minimized window area on east, north, and west. On the north, to save heat in winter, on the E & W to reduce heat gain in summer and shoulder seasons. Most of the E & W windows are shaded for the same reason.

4. South window glazing is a special low-e coating with a high solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) to maximize heat gain in winter. This keeps the space heating cost to $20/month for the main house in the 4 coldest months.

5. Stained concrete floors provide thermal mass to “save up” daytime heat until nighttime. This process is unregulated and occurs naturally and automatically. 2” thick concrete was poured on the first and second floors. The basement slab is 6” to prevent cracking due to somewhat expansive soil. Similarly, the concrete floors help keep the house cool on hot summer afternoons

6. Large window well on the south side provides more heat and light than usually found in a basement.

7. Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) used for wall and roof construction. SIPs can be described as stressed-skin foam panels. They provide a high R-value and ensure a tight heated envelope (reduced unwanted air leakage). Having a SIP roof and no conventional attic trusses make the attic livable space for very low cost.

8. Unique indoor-mounted evaporative cooler uses 5 times less energy than A/C for summertime cooling. The airflow is reversed thru the cooler in winter, using the HEPA air filter, thereby serving as the humidifier. The indoor location of the evaporative cooler allows easier maintenance. Denver is one of the best places on the continent for evaporative cooling.

9. Medium-high efficiency boiler for the in-floor radiant back-up heat and domestic hot water. The boiler is “direct vent” to eliminate the possibility of CO entering the house. The combustion air is sucked in directly from the outside, and blown outside after combustion. The radiant in-floor heat system was installed by Advanced Hydronics. Because the home uses such little backup space heat, this boiler was the best choice at the time.

10. 3.3 KW photovoltaic system mounted on the garage roof feeds power back on to the grid when it is generating more electricity than the home is using.

11. The pre-existing red brick building was saved and re-purposed as the home office/shop. (It still has poor energy performance, but a brick insulation retrofit experiment is ongoing. This is a city-wide problem needing a solution ASAP.) Side note: this building was originally built in the late 40’s to store a huge bank of lead-acid batteries. These batteries were part of the electrical grid for the Denver Tramway system.

12. The SIP construction allowed the easy finishing of the attic space, providing a very useful 3^rd floor bonus room. (Conventionally built homes have vented attics, which are hot in summer, and cold in winter, and the single largest cause of heat loss and heat gain.) Design flaw #1: Kevin’s experience with finished attics led him to believe that the 3^rd floor wouldn’t need any heat. The assumption was that the heat from below would migrate up. It turned out that the house is comfortable at only 65F, so very little heat migrates up at that low of a temperature, and the third floor needs some heat at times.

13. Exterior below grade basement/foundation insulation. This is a really important detail that is rarely done correctly in new construction. The result is the basement zone stays at 64 degrees in the winter without any heat from the boiler.

14. No wood or gas fireplaces. Although we like the ambiance of fireplaces, any room with a fireplace would overheat quickly in this house.

15. Hot water “D’mand” pump. In each bathroom, the doorbell button summons hot water to the fixtures by turning on a pump for a few seconds. This is much quicker than turning on the faucet or shower and waiting for hot water to reach it. This also saves lots of water. This type of demand system is considered superior to timed recirculation systems that waste heat when hot water isn’t called for in the bathrooms.

16. Note on “passive solar cooling”: In the summer, the large double doors on the third floor can be opened at night along with the basement windows. Although over 1000 cubic feet per minute of air then naturally flows up through the house, it’s still not enough cooling effect for the two hottest months of summer. Denver’s climate has changed enough to generally require active cooling.

17. Low maintenance items:

a. Brick and stucco exterior.

b. 75 year stone coated steel shingles. They are much lighter and more hailproof than solid roof tiles.

c. Minimal painted exterior wood surfaces

d. Concrete floors have no maintenance, only cleaning.

e. Minimal roof penetrations mean fewer future roof leaks, and less air leakage. There is no fake chimney that is still put on most new homes. The joint between a chimney and the roof is the single largest source of roof leaks.

f. Low maintenance landscaping, wood mulch for weed control

18. Low Water Landscaping: Although there is a bluegrass play area, the rest of this large lot uses xeriscaping and a drip system for irrigation. Summertime water usage is usually under 10,000 gallons per month.

Passive Solar Heating is Simple

I found this European, scholarly, technical paper on Green Building.

Here's my favorite passage:

"3.1 Heating
3.1.1 Passive systems
General considerations The best way to reduce energy consumption is to take advantage of all available natural energy. This is the purpose of bioclimatic design, which is one path to a low energy house. The bioclimatic approach operates at two levels:
1. let the energy of the sun come in
2. do not let it out again"

It really doesn't get much more complicated than that. We've been in our near-zero energy home for 2.5 years now, and have discovered that not only are we saving energy and money, the comfort is amazing.

A relatively overlooked aspect of passive solar is that you want windows with high SHGC (solar heat gain coefficient) on the south side, preferably with overhangs. In the actual marketplace, I have as yet only found only one supplier of these windows, Hurd. Be sure to specify "hard coat" Lo E. In addition, don't "overglaze" the south side, you might get October overheating or need to wear sunglasses indoors.

Now, armed with that advice, find a building site where your neighbor can't block your sun.