Solar I, completed in 1939, was the first house in America to be heated by the sun’s energy. A single story house-like structure on the MIT campus, Solar One used solar radiation as a heat source for the winter, but projects were also conducted on summer air conditioning and power generation.This house is featured by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technology Program as a “Milestone Building of the 20th century”.
The building’s energy system was hidden in the house’s basement: a massive hot water tank nearly the size of the building on top of it. The 17,400-gallon tank was heated solely by the sun, its energy collected by 14 glass-covered devices on the roof. Water flowed continuously through copper tubes inside these collectors, where it was heated by solar rays and then fed down to the tank. Fans transferred air from the house’s two rooms to the basement, blew it over the tank’s hot exterior, and then returned it to the ground floor to keep the house at 22 °C throughout the winter.
