Bevin Carnes

Adding a couple more photos to show where the old fan was (going to ask my handyman how hard it would be to move it to the adjacent wall, whether it would need rewiring, etc...as you can see it's still just hanging there since I couldn't decide what to do with it. I only knew I needed to patch the hole in my daughter's wall so her room could be used immediately). The door from this room into the house is the old back door to the house which leads to a central hallway, so the extra heat from the solar room really is helpful for heating the house and cutting down on winter heating bills. It's too hot in the room itself to use it as a room, though, which is what I'd like to remedy. I kinda get why the previous owners added the fan, as it vents more heat into another part of the house, but they weren't using my daughter's bedroom as a bedroom and I need to use it as one.

Not sure how ro reply to a reply here, but in response to William Bronson's reply-- both of those are possibilities, actually. The crawl space access is actually in this solar room (under the green tarp in the lower right-hand corner of the last photo) and the heat return will soon have a 2nd intake just through the door from the solar room if we decide to add central AC or swamp cooling to the house (still trying to decide).

Thanks for the suggestions so far! It sounds like ventilation appears to be a big part of the potential solution as well as figuring out a better way to shade the windows. There was an automatic exhaust fan in one corner of the room, but it vented into my daughter's bedroom, which was a no-go, especially in the summer, so I removed it. However, I could probably have a hole made in the exterior wall adjacent to it and re-install the fan. There's also a door in that wall that leads to a shaded patio that I could potentially use as an important part of cross-ventilating the room. I'm attaching a photo that shows door and fan on the back wall of the room.

Hi! I'm new to this forum and I need some advice on an existing passive solar addition on the back of the house I recently purchased in Northern New Mexico. It was built as a "passive solar greenhouse" but seems to get too hot for plants to grow even in the winter. I'd love to use it year round both as a sunroom of sorts and to grow a few veggies that my toddler could help me harvest to learn about how things grow, but nothing too officially "greenhouse" about how I'd like to use it 😅. Whrn I was younger, I used to be really into the idea of passive solar and permaculture, etc. and was excited to see that the house had this solar room when I bought it, but now I feel like I'm in over my head. The windows are massive (7+ ft tall), slant back into the room a bit, and the shades they had when I bought the house are too badly damaged to salvage. I'm wondering if there's anything I can do in terms of purchasing new shades, maybe adding awnings or trees, etc. to make it more possible to use this room for actually living in? I'm going to try to attach interior/exterior photos of the room as well as an overhead view that shows its orientation. Also, I'm a single mom whose primary source of income is teaching public school, so I'm looking for the most cost-effective solution(s) possible. Thanks in advance for your help! 🙂

Oh, and pardon the mess in the photos-- house was a foreclosure that needed extensive renovation and since thus room isn't currently usable it became a catch-all for construction materials 🙃.