I’m chasing the sun around my house…..

Hard to believe that I’m chasing the sun in a week of -6 and -7 overnight in the Nation’s capital. Freaking freezing.

This week I have had some time off work – with headaches and fatigue (yes, yes, all clear signs).

So I have had the time to watch the rhythm of our house, and think about our electricity and consumption use

And this is what I found out.

We have heavy curtains to reduce heat loss, but with the two of us working, opening and closing the curtains to maximise sun and reduce heat loss just isn’t high on the priority list. What I discovered is when you have time, you can care about these important factors. And remarkably, the house does not require heating between 9am and 5:00pm if I play my cards right.

I need to:

Draw the curtains at night when the heating comes on, to retain the heat as much as possible.

Open only the drapes in the morning and leave the shades down until the sun starts to stream though the windows. Between getting the kids off to school and when the sun streams in, I sit and write on the couch where the sun is captured through the front windows. It’s so yummy and toasty to sit with the sun heating up my back.

During the day, I get out and do some physical work in the garden while the sun is shining. This keeps me warm, reduces our heating costs and gets me being productive. Plus plus plus.

When the sun starts streaming, open up the shades and let the sun shine on the floor and heat up the slate tiles. It’s delicious. And the house keeps a cosy temperature of 19 degrees in side all day.

I sit and meditate in the afternoons, in the front window with the sun at its warmest.

Finally, I manoeuvre the clothes horse around to get the clothes dry.

All the while, I’m watching the Wattson click over our net power usage, once we take into account the solar panels.

Wow. Without the experience of chasing the sun, I would just have the heater on all day.

What do you do to maximise the sun?