For you guys that need to heat areas in the extreme cold....

Quick notes for those considering a tiny house. LP siding looks like T1-11 but is made from cypress so it's rot resistant. LP siding can be had with a mylar backing for very little extra. Check Home Depot.

Plan your overhangs so that you have the walls shaded in summer and full sun inside in winter. Face the broad side of the house south.

If you use 2x6 walls you can go with 24" OC stud spacing so that's fewer points for thermal conductivity and more places for insulation.

Passive Solar design utilizes the lower winter sun angler heating, and protects from the higher summer sun overheating a building. Properly built, can reduce heating and cooling needs up to 100%. If you're building a new building anyways, there is no additional costs to situate the building properly with certain design principals.

Dean has built passive solar houses, passive solar chicken coop, and his Deep Winter Passive Solar Greenhouse. In Saskatchewan Canada.

Latitude & Longitude & Sun Angle Calculator: https://www.sunearthtools.com/dp/tools/pos_sun.php?lang=en

Scientific Calculator:
https://www.mathsisfun.com/scientific-calculator.html

Tutorial for Model Solar Home project. How to calculate the roof overhang on the south side, to provide shading in the summer, and allow sunlight in during the winter - for a model solar home. Basic shading strategy for passive solar homes. Reference Your Solar Home Student Guidebook from Solarschoolhouse.org

Yesterday I published a few guides for planning porches around your house to shade your windows in summer and provide light in winter. Today I've created charts showing the elevation of the sun in 10 minute increments thru the seasons. Each dot is 10 minutes. Find the chart closest to your latitude. Latitude is noted in the bottom left legend.

Also included are charts showing the percentage of solar power you can make each hour of the day. Use these charts to assess the "cost" of shade from obstructions or trees on your horizon. For example, an hour of shade caused by a tree at noon is 14% of your daily production, but that same hour of shade at 7am only reduces your production by 7%.

How to fine tune your hourly solar data estimates.

Go to the PVwatts website and put in your address.

Fill out your solar system information such as the kw of panels you have, if it's open rack or roof mount and if the panels are bifacial. Note the DC to AC size ratio is the power of your panels vs the max power of your inverters. If you have 6kw of inverter connected to 12kw of panels, that's a ratio of 2.0.