page_title: Solar gain
hierarchical_section_title: Solar gain
caption_attribution_description: English: Roofline of the Othniel Looker House, located at 10580 Marvin Road north of Harrison in Harrison Township, Hamilton County, Ohio, United States. Built in 1805 and the home of Ohio governor Othniel Looker, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The snow on the roof is an example of solar gain — light snow had fallen overnight, and as temperatures were around freezing, sunlight melted snow but could not affect snow in the shadow of the chimney.
context_page_description: Solar gain is the increase in thermal energy of a space, object or structure as it absorbs incident solar radiation. The amount of solar gain a space experiences is a function of the total incident solar irradiance and of the ability of any intervening material to transmit or resist the radiation.
  Objects struck by sunlight absorb its visible and short-wave infrared components, increase in temperature, and then re-radiate that heat at longer infrared wavelengths. Though transparent building materials such as glass allow visible light to pass through almost unimpeded, once that light is converted to long-wave infrared radiation by materials indoors, it is unable to escape back through the window since glass is opaque to those longer wavelengths. The trapped heat thus causes solar gain via a phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect. In buildings, excessive solar gain can lead to overheating within a space, but it can also be used as a passive heating strategy when heat is desired.
context_section_description: Solar gain (also known as solar heat gain or passive solar gain) is the increase in thermal energy of a space, object or structure as it absorbs incident solar radiation. The amount of solar gain a space experiences is a function of the total incident solar irradiance and of the ability of any intervening material to transmit or resist the radiation.
  Objects struck by sunlight absorb its visible and short-wave infrared components, increase in temperature, and then re-radiate that heat at longer infrared wavelengths. Though transparent building materials such as glass allow visible light to pass through almost unimpeded, once that light is converted to long-wave infrared radiation by materials indoors, it is unable to escape back through the window since glass is opaque to those longer wavelengths. The trapped heat thus causes solar gain via a phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect. In buildings, excessive solar gain can lead to overheating within a space, but it can also be used as a passive heating strategy when heat is desired.
caption: Solar gain is illustrated by the snow on the roof of this house: sunlight has melted all of the snow, except for the area that is shaded by the chimney to the right.
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