Solar Homes Passive Solar Design
Ready to Build Plans
Custom Home Design
Prototype Home
Solar Consulting
Custom Home Design

For much less than the cost of Real Estate fees, you can enjoy the comfort and convenience of a passive solar home custom designed for you.

 Passive solar design is the most cost effective way to use the sun’s energy since there are very few, if any, additional construction costs. The method uses intelligent decisions at the building design stage to make effective use of the sunshine entering the home. Houses are oriented with a south-facing wall of windows that maximize solar gain during the winter and have suitable overhangs to minimize the solar gain in the summer. If the south window area is large in proportion to the floor area of the house, a thermal mass such as a concrete floor or stone wall can be used to absorb some of the heat during the day and radiate the heat at night. This design technique incorporates passive solar heating, passive cooling and natural day lighting in a unified design that reduces energy needs for heating in the winter, cooling in the summer and artificial lighting.

Our design and building process goes through several phases, which are listed below. You may choose to go through as many of these phases as suits your needs.

We also design, supply and install solar and wind power systems and solar thermal systems. If you are interested in these systems or we believe they are suitable options for your particular design we will send you separate Design Questionnaires for these systems.

Phase 1: Information Review and Consulting

We review the questionnaire and other information that you send us, and provide preliminary information about such items as house orientation and siting, energy design, structural aspects, and floor plan layout. We also provide a rough estimate of the cost of a house that would fit your design ideas. This helps us to design the house to meet your budget and your wishes. A site visit may also be included in this stage, at an additional cost, usually $500.

Phase 2: Design Sketches

We prepare one set of to-scale design sketches to show the basic design of the house and some of the things that are possible. This provides a basis for preliminary CAD drawings for the final design. At this stage we can start to provide pricing for the next phases of design and the costs of constructing the home.

 

 

Phase 3: Preliminary CAD Design

At this stage we refine the designs and usually ask you for more information and your thoughts and suggestions.

Phase 4: Final CAD Design $

During this phase, we will continue asking questions as we finalize your drawings for construction and are accustomed to making minor changes. Some changes requested may not be minor and may require more time than allocated. Additional fees sometimes apply.

Phase 5: Construction Phase

With design and drawings complete, you can do your own construction or we can build your home for you. Our builder is Jaylin Homes Inc.