Discovery '76 Solar House design drawing

Creator

Preview

Identifier

10023323

Description

Discovery '76 Solar House design drawing from 1975. The house was an experimental solar energy residential building built by UTA's Construction Research Center, which was 1,950 square feet and included three bedrooms. The house was the first solar powered house in Texas and featured 42 solar panels atop its flat roof to catch sunlight and turn it into energy. The house used twice as much insulation and the windows were insulated with double glazed panes to reduce heat transfer. The house was located on 1.2 acres near the corner of Pecan and Mitchell at 125 W. Sixth Street in Arlington and was later occupied by a graduate student from the College of Engineering and their family. Every appliance in the Solar House was on a separate circuit so researchers could measure how much energy was used from each, and other instruments monitored the flow of heat energy through doors, windows, walls, ceilings, and the foundation. On cloudy days, the solar banks held about three days' worth of energy.

Archival Date

1975

Collection Name

Shorthorn Photographs Collection

Collection Number

Unproc. 2022-23

Original Format

Design Drawings

File Format

JPG

Rights

Rights held by The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections. Any use of content downloaded or printed from this page is limited to non-commercial personal or educational use, including fair use as directed by U.S. copyright laws. For more information or for reproduction requests, please contact UTA Special Collections by emailing spcoref@uta.edu.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Subjects

Drawings; Blueprints; Portrait photographs