The Coastal Cottage faces south, a perfect orientation for passive solar, and we designed the house to take full advantage of the sun as a main heat source. The cedar bracketed bonnet over the first floor windows serves as a sun shield. In the winter, when the sun is lower in the sky, sunlight floods in and warms the house. In the summer, when the sun is higher in the sky, the bonnet blocks the sun’s rays from entering the house. The roof’s eaves are designed to provide the same function for the second floor windows.
We also needed to specify a backup system for cloudy days, for really cold nights, and for the shoulder seasons like March and April when the days are longer, the sun is higher and we can still get very cold weather. We considered relying on a wood stove with electric radiators as a backup, but realized that we needed a more efficient system that would provide more even heat.
We decided to install a radiant floor heating system with tubes filled with hot water that run under the finished floor. In effect the entire floor becomes a radiator and the heat is evenly dispersed. There are numerous advantages to this system including being able to walk around bare foot in the winter and not taking up any wall space with radiators.
To provide hot water and run the heating system we installed a Prestige Excellence high efficiency condensing gas boiler. We had several good reasons to select this unit. It is small and fits into a closet (because we are in a FEMA flood plain we are not allowed to put any mechanical equipment in the basement). It can be vented out of the sidewall and does not require a full chimney. It is Energy Star Rated, operates at 95% efficiency and is able to produce 180 gallons per hour of domestic hot water . And because it is so efficient, it qualifies for a federal tax credit.
