Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Attached-sunspace designs: a nationwide economic appraisal

Conference ·
OSTI ID:6883678
Performance estimates for attached-sunspace passive solar heated residences have recently been incorporated into the Los Alamos/UNM EASE III model. These estimates are used to analyze the economic performance of a fixed dimension sunspace design when attached to a pre-existing single family residential unit. The sunspace is a passive design which can be easily and effectively adapted to a retrofit situation. Several key parameters are carefully evaluated for the sunspace retrofit design. These include loan or mortgage terms, ownership period, resale potential and competing conventional fuel prices. General economic and design parameters are combined in a variant of life cycle costing to evaluate the feasibility of both owner-built and contractor-built attached sunspaces for 220 regions in the contiguous United States. This evaluation is made for two conventional fuel types - natural gas and electric resistance - and for three resale values - 0%, 100%, and 200%. Results show that the prospect for conventional fuel displacement through retrofit of attached sunspaces is very good with the design's economic performance enhanced in regions with expensive conventional fuel alternatives.
Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Lab., NM (USA); New Mexico Univ., Albuquerque (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-36
OSTI ID:
6883678
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-81-406; CONF-801210-19
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English