World's first solar-heated home

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2023

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In December 1948, a family of Hungarian refugees moved into the world's first home to be heated entirely by solar power.

What made the Dover Sun House, in Massachusetts, United States, even more special was that it had been created by three women at a time when men dominated the fields of science and engineering.

Heiress Amelia Peabody funded it, architect Eleanor Raymond designed it and biophysicist Maria Telkes created the heating system. Andrew Nemethy, who grew up in the house, tells Vicky Farncombe how it felt to live in an "elongated cheese wedge".

(Photo: The Dover Sun House. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.
0:04.7	Join me as I serve up personal conversations
0:07.1	with my sensational guests.
0:08.9	Do a leap, interviews, Tim Cook.
0:11.2	Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.
0:15.0	It's in the hands of the Creator.
0:16.7	It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.
0:20.6	If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes, you're
0:24.7	doing the wrong thing.
0:25.9	Julie, at your service.
0:27.8	Listen to all episodes on BBC Sales. You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me
0:41.0	Vicky Foncombe. I'm taking you back 75 years to when three
0:45.7	trailblazing women came together to design the first home to be heated by
0:50.4	solar power. It's the 1st December 1948 and a family of Hungarian refugees
1:00.1	are moving into their new home in rural Massachusetts in the northeast of the US.
1:05.0	But this is no ordinary home.
1:08.0	The Dover Sunhouse is the first real home to be heated entirely by solar power and it's been designed by women.
1:15.5	Here's what the press had to say about it. She trapped the sun.
1:20.3	World's first sun-heated home.
1:24.0	Sun-heated home. Sun furnace in your attic.
1:27.0	Woman scientist collaborates with woman architect
1:30.0	to design dwelling.
	...

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