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When it comes to heating costs, most of us are not lucky enough to live in a temperate area with a constant year-round climate, and instead have to contend with winter heating bills that can be exceptionally high. When evaluating alternative home heating, an option that is often overlooked is passive solar heating. You not only save money, but energy as well.

A fair bit of solar energy hits the surface of the earth, even in the depth of winter. The surface temperature would actually rise much higher were the days of the same length as in the summer. Imagine the possibilities of collecting power every minute the sun is available. Even better, what if no major alterations to your house would be required?

Now we have the Trombe wall. It is made of some sort of material (concrete or rock, for instance) which is utilized because of its thermal mass. This means that it holds in the heat of the warmest part of the daytime and releases it gradually throughout the following hours. It has exterior insulation by means of a sheet of glass and also has an airspace which means it avoids losing warmth during the nighttime. Over the glass there is a shade which lets the lower wintertime sunshine in but keeps the higher summertime sunshine out. That results in smaller air conditioning costs also.

True, short of major renovations, such an addition isn't going to be easy to retrofit to your house, and custom designed homes are expensive. But retrofitting a house for other energy efficient heating techniques, like radiant heating, is also expensive and, unlike the other alternatives, passive solar heating, once implemented, costs nothing to continue using.

Consider also the fact that the concept of the Trombe wall is a 19th century invention that was popularized in the 1960's and so has been designed into a number of existing homes. So when you're looking for that new, energy efficient home, know that designs of yesteryear can still be green.

Ideas that circulate in the mainstream today do work, but people have been looking for money saving opportunities for a long time now. It's due now to the increase in environmental consciousness and rise in heating costs that is leading people to look to the solutions of yesteryear, such as passive solar heating, that were used effectively by our ancestors to save resources, to use as solutions to help save the world.

One thing people seldom consider when it comes to alternative home heating is the use of passive solar heating. Enter the Trombe wall. It's a wall of material used for thermal mass (concrete or stone, for example) to store the heat of the day and release it slowly through the day and night. It's insulated on the outside by a pane of glass and airspace to prevent heat loss to outside at night. This wall has been installed in many existing homes. If you want a new, energy efficient home, you can still consider installing a green Trombe wall.