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rockies
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# Posted: 30 Aug 2015 07:31pm
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The best orientation for a building to face is said to be between 20 degrees west or east of south for solar gain. I can understand a lot of people wanting to face southeast for the morning light, but then the west wall faces right into the setting sun.
Would facing southwest be better so that you get more afternoon sun on the long south façade and the west wall is facing more north? Which do you prefer?
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 30 Aug 2015 08:02pm
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Depends what is trying to be achieved. Our door faces west. No window in it. Small window to let in some light from the west side. Porch roof over shades sun until sun is low and then trees block most.
Windows are in long sides; one 72 x 48 and the other side 60 x 48. Large one faces the view to the north. Yes, some people call a window facing north a no-no. We did it for the view.
Windows are sliders and permit the prevailing south to north and north to south breeze to blow through. Direction is time of day dependent.
Eve overhang is calculated to prevent the summer sun from directly striking the glass. Winter sun is lower and can strike on the glass.
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Borrego
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# Posted: 2 Sep 2015 12:36pm
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As Don said, it depends.....we are in the desert so I faced the house entry to the north, that's where our view is plus don't want that desert sun baking into the house all day long...south facing roof was designed for solar and the eave overhang was calculated as I built by watching the summer and winter sun path for a season. A little forethought can pay big dividends down the road....
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Malamute
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# Posted: 2 Sep 2015 04:21pm
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Mine is slightly east of south. I love sitting on the porch step in the winter drinking coffee in the morning.
In the summer, the sun is much farther north, so I get more shade on the porch on the afternoon. Much better than having the porch get full sun when its HOT out.
I dont know how much angle I have off of true square orientation. I do get some moonlight in the north-ish window at times. Nice when it comes across the bed. Other times it comes in the west window when its about to set.
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creeky
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# Posted: 2 Sep 2015 04:40pm
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I face mine pretty much due south. I'm in a northern climate and I'm trying for all the solar gain I can get come winter.
If you're doing grid tied solar they say to lean to the west as that's the period of highest electrical demand (late afternoon, folks coming home from work and starting supper, tv etc).
I thought of doing one of my solar arrays cheating to the east. It's morning sun that gets the batteries going and takes up the load for coffee maker etc.
But over all. Do due south.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 21 Dec 2020 11:17am - Edited by: gcrank1
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Here I am at the Winter Solstice 2020 and already rethinking array orientation for 2021.....
After reworking the prev. owner hacked together 'system' and using it with quite some success since this past Aug. I have certainly learned some things.
1) my cabin was not built in the right spot to put the array on.
2)the site is not particularly solar friendly. It is split n/s pretty much through the cabin location with tall, heavy pines to the w and open meadow to the e. To get good solar exposure requires the array be well away from the cabin. This requires a remote powerhouse and inverting to 110vac there. Not a bad thing, btw.
3) my wife greatly dislikes the look of an array out in the meadow. And dislikes me messing about with it 'so much'. She does like the elec., though......
So, relocating the 'solar' to the remote powerhouse some 90' away and mostly out of her view helped mitigate the issue. Unfortunately it is still in a poor location as it is due south of the cabin. This means I lose the sun every afternoon because the west side woods is tall pines.
Ive gone with a very SE temporary array to try to pull as much charging from sunrise to noon/1pm'ish as possible to replenish the overnight use. Though not ideal it has been just Ok.
Phase one this next spring is thought to be a better rack, I think fixed for the 6x102w 12v panels in 2 series/3 parallel, 24vdc delivered to my Blue Sky 50 mppt cc. For fixed here in sc WI, USA my lat. is about 44*, lat. seems to be often mentioned to use as a decent array angle.
HERE IT IS, my main inquiry:
Considering our winter cabin use is very limited (we get snowed out) it is really a 3 season place. And summer sun/time/charging isnt an issue.
How about I set the fixed array for the Spring/Fall Equinox angle to the sun? This should maximize our 'gain' for the spring and fall seasons with no downside for summer and winter wont much matter.
Fixed at that would be way easy to set and forget, my array should be more than adequate to our use, the mppt cc will pull 'all I can get' out of the array leaving me with the old 'how much (and what kind of) batteries' to get since these old ones are dying off. But that is a whole-nuther post....
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