Sunroom

The lean-to extension on the southwest corner of the house is called the "Sunroom," not only because it faces south and has a lot of glazing. It is where we put free solar energy to work for a variety of purposes:

• On sunny winter days, solar rays heat up the thermal mass in the insulated slab-and-tile floor. Surplus heat is channeled into the rest of the house through natural air circulation. This system, along with other south-facing windows, normally provides enough heat for even a very cold, but sunny, winter day.

• When the sun goes down, we lower thermal window shades to help retain the heat overnight. (On hot, sunny summer days, we lower the thermal shades to deflect sunlight and keep the house cooler.)

• In later winter and early spring, we start our garden seeds in germinating flats set on shelves against the south Sunroom window.

• During the winter and on rainy days, we use the room's solar heat to dry clothes on a retractable clothes line (pictured at left ).

• In the late summer and fall we use the space to dry beans, fruit, and vegetables.

• The Sunroom also doubles as a parlor, guest room, workshop, laundry room, canning supply storage, and garden potting center. The washing machine is a state-of-the art model that uses so little electricity and water that we find it works very well on the limited amount of juice a PV system provides. We usually wait for sunny days to do laundry, vacuum floors, play the stereo, etc., when the batteries are likely to be full and we have incoming PV current that otherwise would be unused.