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The people fortunate enough to live in a consistently warm and sunny place like Southern California don't need to worry about their heating costs in the winter. But the rest of us are looking for ways to save energy, thereby saving money. Today, being environmentally conscious is trendy anyway, and you'll save money to boot. When thinking about alternative home heating, consider the option of passive solar heating.

Even on the coldest winter days, the sun's heat can be significant. It's only the shortness of the days that keeps the snows from melting. What if you could harness that heating power, even for the short time you get it, without making huge changes to the structure of your home?

Here is where the Trombe wall comes in. This wall is made of a thermal mass (such as concrete or stone) that can store the heat built up during the day, and then release it slowly throughout both the night and day. On the outside the wall is insulated by a glass pane and an airspace, thus preventing the loss of heat to the outside during the night. A shade rests above the glass that allows direct light exposure during low winter sun, but acts as a protection during prolonged high summer sun heat, this dual action helps keep cooling bills in the summer low also.

True, short of major renovations, such an addition isn't going to be easy to retrofit to your house, and custom designed homes are expensive. But retrofitting a house for other energy efficient heating techniques, like radiant heating, is also expensive and, unlike the other alternatives, passive solar heating, once implemented, costs nothing to continue using.

Not everything from the past involves excessive waste of resources. Trombe walls invented in the 19th century are an excellent green choice for building or buying your new home. These type of walls, made popular in home designs in the 1960's, are to be considered when you are searching for an energy efficient home.

The commonly presented traditional views are viable, but we have all been searching for a long time for ways to economize. Finally nowadays, we have become more ecologically aware and, given the high prices of our usual heat sources, we have begun to think about clever answers found by our forefathers, such as passive solar heating. That allows us to preserve precious, dwindling resources and utilize them alternatively in our struggle to save our beleaguered planet.