The Sophab is a curved-arch retrofit that wraps the home you already own — opening up bright new living space, heating it with free winter sun, and sheltering the walls and roof underneath from the weather that ages them.
A Sophab is a curved, glazed arch that attaches to your existing building — no demolition, no new foundation. It turns an outside wall into a bright, sheltered room and wraps your home in free solar warmth, working with the house you already have.
Interested in harnessing solar energy but not sure where to start? We offer Solar Passive Habitats that range in size — from compact heat-pump covers, to full-house coverings and solar modifications tuned to your site.
Start with the smallest one, on us: grab the free build-it-yourself plan for the Heat-Pump Sophab — a canopy that shelters your outdoor unit from wind, snow and ice so it runs steadier in winter. Three sizes, for ground- or wall-mounted units.
The arch turns an outside wall into usable, sheltered living space — a sunroom, a mudroom buffer, a place to grow — adding room to your home without a full addition.
The glazing captures low winter sun to pre-heat the house before your furnace or heat pump runs, and shades the high summer sun — free tempering, lower bills, no fuel burned.
By sheltering the walls, windows and roof beneath it from sun, rain and freeze-thaw, the arch slows the weathering that ages them — and a full enclosure can nearly stop it.
The same curved, solar-passive shell — sized to your home, from a cover over a heat pump to a full Solarship: a whole home in a dome. It's the gothic arch brought into the modern world: here's the physics of how it works.
On a commercial building the arch does one of two jobs: over a flat roof it cuts heating, cooling and the billed demand that dominates a commercial bill — or against a dead wall it adds leasable square footage for about half the cost of a build-out.
There's a payback calculator that runs on your own rates and rents, itemised down to the line, with every assumption written out.
