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If you know you ought to be doing more to help slow global warming but just can’t quite get motivated to make drastic lifestyle changes, stop by the Corrales Comment/Radford residence some afternoon. It’s an owner-built passive solar home, and this time of year a crucial part of it undergoes super-heating in preparation for winter. The idea is to deliver as much heat as possible to thermal mass inside the home —meaning adobe wall, brick floor and even an old-fashioned cast iron bathtub— without overheating the rest of the home.
This time of year, the attached greenhouse is closed up tight to trap as much of the sun’s heat as possible and allow that to super-heat the adjacent bathroom which was designed to be the major source of warmth during winter months, gradually releasing heat to bedrooms, living room and kitchen.
In mid-afternoon September 18, the temperature in the greenhouse was 124 degrees F. Maybe if you stood there for even a few minutes, you might feel motivated to act on climate change.
No one is suggesting that typical temperatures in Corrales might top 120 degrees on a regular basis during the next 30 years, but there’s little doubt but that it will get much hotter. You wouldn’t like 124.