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Solar Greenhouse Basic Construction Design Concept
   
A Solar Greenhouse should fulfill three primary features.
Basic Shape and Location Factors
The width should be due east and west, causing the long walls should face due south and North. The south wall will need two layers of glazing. All the surfaces that don't face south are insulated.
Why should the dimensions be 2:1
The greenhouse should be about twice as long (east to west) as it is wide, this offsets the effect shade from the opaque east and west end walls create. These proportions are recommended for greenhouses both solar and otherwise. This allows the greenhouse to capture more solar energy for each square foot of growing space
If the building is made much deeper than two to one the heat-storage material(Water in Dark Containers more discussed later) in back is shaded too much.
The peak should be made roughly as high as the building width. This will help the Heat-storing materials in the back of the greenhouse to get direct exposure to the sun causing the heat storage (water tanks) to work efficiently.
The precise angle of the north roof slope north roof is not critical. Angles between 60 and 75 degrees for the north roof will work well in the United States and southern Canada. Sunlight entering the greenhouse will strikes the white painted roof, aiming itback down to the growing beds.
From the outside, the interior of the greenhouse allows the escape of very little light and if designed well, solar greenhouses with reflective walls can actually deliver up to a third more light to the plants in winter.
The slope of the sun-collecting south face might appear to be trickier to decide upon. The simplest thing to do is to add 20 degrees to your latitude. A south face with that angle will give optimum performance in January. But if that particular angle proves hard to work with, go to a slightly shallower one, and you will be favoring solar collection in spring and fall. If you use 50 degrees rather than 60, which, for example, you may figure is your ideal, you still have sacrificed very little midwinter light.
When it comes to putting in insulation and heat storage, however, solar greenhouses can get needlessly expensive. The key is to have sensible amounts of both. Great thicknesses of insulation can't do away with the need for heat storage, and are wasteful. And obviously, adequate heat-storage material without a certain amount of insulation in the walls is equally wasteful.
Now on to Keeping Heat constant
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