While you are working on your solar panels or solar heaters, you can also explore other small projects that can make your house a better place to live in.

Here are some projects that take you less than a day to implement. And many of them are very helpful in lowering your energy bills as well.

Most of them do not cost more than $100+, so if you have a little time and a little cash, you can begin right away:

1. Install solar screens

Solar screens help to keep your house cool during summer. It prevents heat from coming into your house through the windows. As such, your air-conditioners will not need to work as hard.

Most solar screens are quite affordable. The best ones are those with a metallic, reflective surface. They reflect radiation away instead of absorbing it. They are also pretty durable.

2. Solar ventilators

Ventilators can be installed at your attic, powered by solar energy. During summer, you can activate these fans to pump the heat out of your interior. This alone can cool your house considerably.

All you need is a small fan, a small vent that comes with a cover and a small solar panel. You don’t even need rechargeable batteries. It stops working when it becomes dark, but you won’t need it at night.

Try it.

When the weather gets colder, remember to cover them properly so heat doesn’t escape through these vents.

3. Solar powered air circulation

When you heat up your house, warm air rises to the top. They are all trapped at the ceiling or attic. Heat is not distributed evenly. You can install a ceiling fan to push the heat down, or use solar power to pump warm air down to ground level.

The effect: Your home warms us faster and you’ll feel more comfortable.

For this project, you’ll need a small solar panel, a set of rechargeable batteries, a long pipe and a small exhaust fan.

4. Landscaping

Planting trees, scrubs and bushes around your house can give you many benefits. You will not only create a beautiful and rejuvenating environment… You can prevent bitter cold winds from blowing against your house in winter and shelter your house from strong sunshine during summer.

5. Install solar light tubes

Solar light tubes allow natural light to enter your house while keeping the heat and precipitation out. They cost a little more. But you can experience the benefits of full spectrum lighting in your room without expensive illumination technology.

Continue Reading:

1. 7 Different Ways of Using Solar Energy At Home and In Your Office
2. Challenges and Difficulties In Using Solar Panels And How To Overcome Them
3. Survey Your Household Energy Usage Before Installing Solar Panels

Solar light tubes are a little different from the usual DIY solar panels stuff…but it’s still environmentally friendly. It’s all about designing your home so natural light can enter. Compared to using an opening in the roof, solar light tubes are much cooler.

This invention has been around for ages and is also known as a “tubular skylight”, “SunScope” or “Tubular Daylighting Device”. Ancient Egyptians first developed this idea to bring sunlight into their living spaces. Many years later, Paul Emile Chappuis from London begin marketing this concept and made it popular.

Solar light tubes are lined with highly reflective material that allows light rays into a building. The (light) entrance can be located on the roof or at an outer wall. Using a dome (cupola) at the entrance, more sunlight can enter the tube from different directions. At the other end of the light tube, a diffuser is used to spread sunlight evenly around the room.

If the tube is short and straight, it is more efficient and can transmit more light. For longer and angled tubes, the reflective efficiency must be very high in order to minimize losses. Better solar light tubes can also transmit moonlight — how cool is that?

In colder regions, skylights and normal windows do not offer better heat insulation than solar light pipes. Thus you can save on heating costs… There is also less visual contact with the external environment so you can have more privacy.

Solar light pipes provide you with natural light and can help you save energy (and money). Combining this setup with an artificial light, you can make full use of solar illumination when it’s day and rely on energy saving lamps at night.

Continue Reading:

1. Pool Solar Panels
2. Properties Of Solar Energy You Must Know About
3. Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Projects That Can Complement Solar Panels