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To that end, it can be altered if you build a home with light in mind.
We built our first passive solar home in 2003 and were instantly spoiled with the mood changing flood of light even on winter snow days on the western slope of the Sierra at 4000ft.
We purchased a true passive solar designed home we found in Sagle last year, the only one we found after looking for 2yrs.
If you know what to look for, many homes are built like passive solar by accident.
When I lived in Coeur d'Alene I bought a small ranch style home that looked pretty normal.
It was designed with passive solar windows, inside chimney fireplace, and a host of other great features. It was just a simple two-bedroom, one bath house.
The sun came into the house until about April and then the sun angle kept the interior cool, but bright.
I bought a "super-nonsense" home that had BPA certification. What a stupid design.
So how can some guy in Idaho in 1955 get it right and BPA with all their engineers and technology cannot design with nature!!
Northern Idaho sun is similar to Spokane, depending on elevation. Here are the WA averages, and can probably be assumed to be close to Couer d'alene at lower elevations.
Thank you. We have decided not to pursue this opportunity for reasons other than weather. Idaho is such a beautiful place. I'm kind of sad. Thanks again, everyone.
CDA's clouds are typically Vancouver's clouds from the day before. With 30-50% less moisture remaining and maybe a little patchier but still moisture carrying clouds in a land tilted away from the sun more than places to the south.
The clouds usually dump most of their precipitation over Seattle, Olympia and Vancouver on the other side of the Cascade Mountain Range. So, by the time they reach Eastern Washington, they are dryer and just produce a thick layer of overcast without a lot of precipitation. When they get into Idaho, they bump up against the Bitteroot Mountain Range and just kind of sit there, making the sky look like a dishwater gray during the winter. This gets aggravated by the chimney smoke and the prescribed burns that go on in the winter.
If you live in North Idaho, just count on very little sunshine from the week of Halloween until about the first week of May.
It effects everyone differently. I -- personally -- have become accustomed to the sunshine and longer days where I live now, and I don't think I could move up that far north ever again. It has been raining intermittently here in Southern California and I am not liking it so much. I know we need it, but I miss the sunshine and the lack of it has effected my mood.
Idaho's winters are dark, period. Since the state is about 800 miles long, the north is closer to the pole, so the days are shorter there in the winter and longer in the summer. At the southernmost border, the days are about an hour longer than they are at the northern border.
Lake effect creates some of the overcast skies in the north, including a lot more fog that occurs in the south. But the south is more prone to temperature inversions, particularly in Boise and Pocatello, than in the north, which sometimes creates log smog.
But the south does get more sunny days than the north during the winter, and they are usually pretty cold days when it's sunny.
I don't know why people are so negative, this has been the last couple days and we have had a lot of days of sun this winter. I just took this from my office window.
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