Books about Solar home from Amazon.com

Want to take advantage of solar power in your home? Whether you’re looking to save on your energy costs by adding a few solar components or you want to build a solar-powered house from the ground up, Solar Power Your Home For Dummies takes the mystery out of this energy source and shows you how to put it to work for you!

This friendly, hands-on guide is packed with tips for making your home more energy-efficient though solar power—and helping the planet at the same time. You’ll see how to survey your home to determine your current household energy efficiency and use, and evaluate where solar power would best benefit you. You’ll also calculate what the return on your investment will be before you make any decisions. Once you’ve decided on a project, you’ll see whether it’s best to hire a contractor or do it yourself. We leave no stone unturned—you’ll also discover how to:

• Choose and install your best solar system
• Handle small to large solar projects
• Heat and cool your house with solar energy
• Install exterior solar lighting
• Handle swimming pool, water heater, or ventilation solar projects
• Create greenhouses or solar rooms
• Build, buy, or sell a solar home
• Finance your solar investments
• Take advantage of tax rebates and incentives associated with solar power
• Avoid the worst solar mistakes

Featuring ten of the easiest and cheapest do-it-yourself solar projects, Solar Power Your Home For Dummies is the fun and easy way to meet your energy needs with this clean power source!.
Price: $8.79 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The coming energy crisis caused by a peak in global oil and natural gas production will profoundly affect the lives of all North Americans As the price of these vital fuels rises, homeowners will scramble to cut their fuel bills. Two options for meeting the upcoming challenge are dramatic improvements in home energy efficiency and efforts to tap into clean, affordable, renewable energy resources to heat and cool homes, to provide hot water and electricity, and even to cook. These measures can result in huge savings and a level of energy independence.

The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy tells you how. It starts by outlining the likely impacts of fossil fuel shortages and some basic facts about energy. It then discusses energy conservation to slash energy bills and prepare for renewable energy options. Focusing carefully on specific strategies needed to replace specific fuels, the book then examines each practical energy option available to homeowners:

Solar hot water, cooking, and water purification
Space heat: passive and active solar retrofits
Wood heat
Passive cooling
Solar electricity
Wind-generated electricity
Electricity from microhydropower sources
Emerging technologies-hydrogen, fuel cells, methane digesters, and biodiesel

The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy gives readers sufficient knowledge to hire and communicate effectively with contractors and, for those wanting do installations themselves, it recommends more detailed manuals. With a complete resource listing, this well-illustrated and accessible guide is a perfect companion for illuminating the coming dark age.

Dan Chiras has studied renewable energy and energy efficiency for three decades and has installed several renewable energy systems. He lives in a self-designed passive solar/solar electric home. An award-winning author of over 20 books, he is a sustainability design consultant who teaches courses on renewable energy, green building, and sustainability at Colorado College.

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Price: $16.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A straight-talking book tells grid-connected homeowners how to use free energy from the sun and wind to reduce or even eliminate their electric bills, and what to expect from this independent, thoughtful lifestyle. Whether you live in the sun-soaked Southwest, or windy North Dakota, alternative energy has come of age with affordable modern technology. Now with rebates and incentives from most states, installing a home system is an economically-attractive and environmentally-responsible option. Chapters include: - Why invest in alternative energy for your home? - Is it legal and safe? - How solar electricity really works - Batteries or not? - Sizing a system to fit your home and your needs - Got Wind? - What does it cost? - Does your state offer rebates or incentives? - Permits, Paperwork and Financing - The Nuts & Bolts: what to look for, what to avoid - Who does the installation? - Extensive appendix with resources, manufacturers, sizing worksheets, glossary, and more.
Price: $11.69 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Heating water with the sun is almost as old as humankind itself, and it is done all over the world. Yet there are strangely few resources on the topic in North America

Solar Water Heating fills this gap. It reviews the history of solar water and space heating systems from prehistory to the present, then presents the basics of solar water heating, including an introduction to modern solar energy systems, energy conservation and energy economics. Drawing on the author's experience as an installer of these systems, the book goes on to cover:

• Types of solar collectors, solar water and space heating systems and solar pool heating systems, including their advantages and disadvantages
• System components, their installation, operation, and maintenance
• System sizing and siting
• Choosing the appropriate system.

Since people often get turned off by the up-front cost, the book focuses especially on the financial aspects of solar water or space heating systems, clearly showing that such systems can save significant costs in the long run. Well-illustrated, the book is designed for a wide readership from the curious to the student or professional.

Bob Ramlow is the solar thermal consultant for the Wisconsin Focus on Energy Program. The owner of a renewable energy company, he has over 30 years experience with solar energy systems and is a founder and director of the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA). Benjamin Nusz currently works as a solar water heating consultant and site assessor in Wisconsin.

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Price: $14.93 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Concerns over dwindling resources and environmental degradation are driving many to seek alternatives to our wasteful, polluting lifestyle. Clean technologies such as solar power, wind power, and biodiesel fuel are soaring in popularity.

Real Goods Solar Living Source Book-Special 30th Anniversary Edition is the ultimate guide to renewable energy, sustainable living, green building, homesteading, off-the-grid living, and alternative transportation, written by experts with decades of experience and a passion for sharing their knowledge. This fully updated edition includes brand-new sections on Peak Oil, climate change, relocalization, natural burial, biodynamics, and permaculture. It also boasts the latest product listings and completely rewritten and expanded chapters on:

• Land and shelter
• Natural building
• Passive solar
• Biofuels
• Sustainable transportation
• Grid-tied photovoltaics
• Solar hot water systems
• Plus, over 150 pages of maps, wiring diagrams, formulae, charts, solar sizing worksheets, and much more

Whether you're a layperson or a professional, novice or longtime aficionado, the new sourcebook puts the latest research and products at your fingertips-all the information you need to make sustainable living a reality.

John Schaeffer is the president and founder of Real Goods, the oldest and largest catalog company devoted to the sale and service of renewable-energy products. Now merged with Gaiam, Real Goods has converted over sixty thousand homes to solar energy since 1978, when it sold the very first photovoltaic module in America. Real Goods hosts the annual SolFest at its Solar Living Center headquarters in Hopland, California.

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Price: $20.09 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Passive solar heating and passive cooling—approaches known as natural conditioning—provide comfort throughout the year by reducing, or eliminating, the need for fossil fuel. Yet while heat from sunlight and ventilation from breezes is free for the taking, few modern architects or builders really understand the principles involved.

Now Dan Chiras, author of the popular book "The Natural House," brings those principles up to date for a new generation of solar enthusiasts.

In "The Solar House," Chiras sets the record straight on the vast potential for passive heating and cooling. Acknowledging the good intentions of misguided solar designers in the past, he highlights certain egregious erros and shows how to avoid them. More importantly, Chiras explains in methodical detail how today’s home builders can succeed with solar designs.

Readers will learn:
- How to select a cost-effective, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly backup heating system.
- how to preserve indoor air quality in an airtight, energy-efficient home.
- ways of employing green building materials in a naturally conditioned home..
Price: $17.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book is the first to promote the benefits of both passive solar energy and earth sheltering in greenhouse design. This combination results in greenhouses which need no additional heating. The captured sun s energy and that which is stored in the earth is enough for successful year round harvest. Gone are costly heating bills. Gone is the squander of non-renewable energy resources. This is because above-ground greenhouses get natural heat at night from only one side, the floor. They lose heat from the other five sides. The properly designed earth-sheltered greenhouse is naturally warmed at night -- and in the winter -- from five sides and loses heat from only one. The ratio is exactly reversed. This book has it all. It takes you step by step through the construction of an inexpensive greenhouse which may be built with either newly purchased or salvaged building materials for pennies on the dollar. It explains the author s unique Post/Shoring/Polyethylene construction methods and design techniques which Countryside Magazine called Revolutionary... innovative and ingenious...a totally different concept. In its way it is both as simple and as amazingly ingenious as a paperclip. The book deals heavily with design so that you may custom build your own greenhouse perfect for your particular climate and needs. It tells you how to use gravity to warm your winter plants; how to effectively capture and store the sun s heat; how to make up for poor sunlight free of cost; how to automatically vent without power; how to choose the best glazing for your project; where to find free building materials; when to use heat tubes and when not to; how to use a root cellar in tandem with the greenhouse; where to use insulation with wonderful effect (and where to absolutely avoid it); how to deal with plant pests organically; what animals should be living in your greenhouse; and hundreds of more tips. The Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book has 230 pages with nearly 200 illustrations, photos, diagrams, lists, charts and drawings. It contains all the information you need to free you from the pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, waxed, and E-coli laden, genetically modified and irradiated supermarket produce..
Price: $24.44 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In 1994, when Chelsea Green published The Straw Bale House , the response from many people was a loud, "Huh?!"

Those days are gone. With more than 100,000 copies sold, and straw bale projects underway in most regions of North America, we've entered a new era. Even building-code officials and insurance companies now look favorably upon straw bale buildings, with their extraordinary energy efficiency and wise use of agricultural waste for construction materials.

Bergeron and Lacinski's new book is the first to look carefully at the specific design considerations critical to success with a straw bale building in more extreme climates-where seasonal changes in temperature, precipitation, and humidity create special stresses that builders must understand and address. The authors draw upon years of experience with natural materials and experimental techniques, and present a compelling rationale for building with straw-one of nature's most resilient, available, and affordable byproducts.

For skeptics and true believers, this book will prove to be the latest word.

Thorough explanations of how moisture and temperature affect buildings in seasonal climates, with descriptions of the unique capacities of straw and other natural materials to provide warmth, quiet, and comfort year-round.

Comprehensive comparison of the two main approaches to straw bale construction: "Nebraska-style," where bales bear the weight of the roof, and framed structures, where bales provide insulation.

Detailed advice-including many well-considered cautions-for contractors, owner-builders, and designers, following each stage of a bale-building process.

This is a second-generation straw bale book, for those seeking serious information to meet serious challenges while adventuring in the most fun form of construction to come along in several centuries..
Price: $17.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]