The house is oriented 5° east of duro south and we have more than adequate solar gain. But.. we are missing one crucial piece; and that is thermal mass. Having a material that can capture and hold that heat when the sun goes down is key to a passive solar design.
We did originally plan to have a topping slab and radiant heating in the house, but we could not get it in the budget. I then mentioned having tile where we would get solar gain and have a neat combo of wood flooring and tile, but the height of the subfloor got too complicated. These are ideas, however, I wish that we implemented. Our mini splits work just fine in the winter, but I do think if we had thermal mass, we could get away with not using them a lot of the time.
