Green Living in the Sonoran Desert
Posted on 28. Oct, 2010 by admin in Opinion
Phoenix, Arizona carries some of the country’s most consistent high temperatures though out the summer. Living here one gets used to living with 110+ F days and the heat doesn’t go away at night. I have been out at 1 or 2 AM and the temperature still reaches over 100 degrees.
Every once in while you will hear of green homes in the desert that use all types of green tools like passive energy and light techniques to hold the cool air in during the summer and prevent the cold air from gaining into the house during the winter. Passive lighting helps to use the natural day light to flood through your house, preferably in a way that does not heat up your home’s temperature.
There are a ton of great products out there like Solatube lighting to retrofit your house to make it more green. But if you are one of the few to build new then the possibilities are endless. I once saw a house way out in the desert that was a steel beam structure with a concrete roof with cool water running through tubes embedded into the concrete ceiling slabs. The water was always reused and the coolness from the concrete was pushed down into the rooms due to cool air being heavier than warm. The warm air was then pulled out with a single ceiling fan in the center of the room.
Truly amazing – No air conditioning in Phoenix
Here is a two part video (watch the first) that shows another example of a really true sustainable house being built right smack in the Sonoran Desert.
Enjoy!
Neal
