Solar Home Heating Basics: A Green Energy Guide

Solar Home Heating Basics: A Green Energy Guide Review

As fossil fuel supplies dwindle, home heating will be one of the major challenges in temperate and cold climates in upcoming years. The reserves of natural gas used to heat the majority of North American buildings are rapidly being depleted. This latest Green Energy Guide helps readers who want to slash their energy bills and reduce their dependence on scarce resources to navigate the sometimes confusing maze of clean, reliable, and affordable options.

Solar Home Heating Basics focuses on renewable energy strategies to heat new and existing homes and small businesses. These include:

• Energy efficiency, weatherization, and insulation
• Solar hot air heating
• Solar thermal systems
• Passive solar heating
• Backup heating systems

While most solar home heating resources are geared primarily towards new buildings, this practical guide addresses ways of retrofitting existing buildings, making solar a reality for many people.

Packed with all the essential information home and small business owners need to find alternatives to conventional heating solutions, Solar Home Heating Basics is your key to a personal energy solution.

Dan Chiras is a respected educator and the author of thirty books on residential renewable energy and green building, including The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy and Power from the Sun. Dan is the director and lead instructor at the Evergreen Institute's Center for Renewable Energy and Green Building, where he teaches workshops on energy efficiency, solar electricity, solar hot water, small wind energy, green building, natural plasters, and natural building.

Passive Solar House: The Complete Guide to Heating and Cooling Your Home

Passive Solar House: The Complete Guide to Heating and Cooling Your Home Review

Revised and Expanded Edition-Includes CD-ROM with Custom Design Software

For the past ten years The Passive Solar House has offered proven techniques for building homes that heat and cool themselves, using readily available materials and methods familiar to all building contractors and many do-it-yourself homeowners.

True to this innovative, straightforward approach, the new edition of this best-selling guide includes CSOL passive solar design software, making it easier than ever to heat your home with the power of the sun. Since The Passive Solar House was first published, passive solar construction expert James Kachadorian has perfected user-friendly, Windows-compatible software to supplement the design process explained in the book by allowing homeowners/designers to enter the specifications of their design and see how changing a variable will affect its energy efficiency.

This is the building book for a world of climbing energy costs. Applicable to diverse regions, climates, budgets, and styles of architecture, Kachadorian's techniques translate the essentials of timeless solar design into practical wisdom for today's solar builders. Profiles of successful passive solar design, construction, and retrofit projects from readers of the first edition provide inspiration to first-time homebuilders and renovators alike.

Natural Home Heating: The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Options

Natural Home Heating: The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Options Review

Natural Home Heating is the first comprehensive guide to heating your home with renewable energy sources. Greg Pahl offers a well-organized, easy-to-understand tour of all available renewable home-heating options, including wood, pellet, corn and grain-fired stoves, fireplaces, furnaces and boilers as well as masonry heaters, active and passive solar systems, and heat pumps. Learn how to burn environmentally friendly biodiesel fuels, not just in your car, but in your furnace or boiler. Included is everything you need to know about the fuels, systems, technologies, costs, and advantages and disadvantages of each option. Pahl teaches homeowners how to retrofit existing heating systems and choose renewable replacements, or design an entirely new house that can be heated comfortably with minimal environmental and financial impact.
Consider:

95% of American homes are heated with fossil fuels or electricity (which is generated mainly by fossil fuels).

Oil and gas prices will continue to rise as supplies dwindle and sources become less reliable.

Home heating costs could double or even triple in the event of a fuel crisis.

The use of fossil fuels is the primary contributor to global warming.

There are viable, clean, healthy, and affordable home heating alternatives!
Learn how to burn environmentally friendly bio-diesel fuels, not just in your car, but in your furnace. Find out how a ground-source heat pump works and why it can achieve 400% heating efficiency. Discover what it takes to make burning wood truly sustainable. Natural Home Heating explains all these details and more, making it unique in the marketplace.