Book Description
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. The techniques required to heat and cool a building passively have been used for thousands of years. Early societies such as the Native American Anasazis and the ancient Greeks perfected designs that effectively exploited these natural processes. The Greeks considered anyone who didn't use passive solar to heat a home to be a barbarian! In the United States, passive solar architecture experienced a major resurgence of interest in the 1970s in response to crippling oil embargoes. With grand enthusiasm but with scant knowledge (and sometimes little common sense), architects and builders created a wide variety of solar homes. Some worked pretty well, but looked more like laboratories than houses. Others performed poorly, overheating in the summer because of excessive or misplaced windows and skylights, and growing chilly in the colder months because of insufficient thermal mass and insulation and poor siting. In The Solar House, Dan 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--and entirely avoidable--errors. More importantly, Chiras explains in methodical detail how today's home builders can succeed with solar designs. Now that energy efficiency measures including higher levels of insulation and multi-layered glazing have become standard, it is easier than ever before to create a comfortable and affordable passive solar house that will provide year-round comfort in any climate. Moreover, since modern building materials and airtight construction methods sometimes result in air-quality and even toxicity problems, Chiras explains state-of-the-art ventilation and filtering techniques that complement the ancient solar strategies of thermal mass and daylighting. Chiras also explains the new diagnostic aids available in printed worksheet or software formats, allowing readers to generate their own design schemes.
Customer Reviews:
Amazing book - quite possibly the BEST on solar building.......2007-07-13
My copy of this book is a mess. It has highlighting and notes all throughout the pages and looks well worn even though I've only had the book for a year.
When the time came to do some studying on solar design, this was the book that was recommended to me. And for good reason - it packs a wallop and provides SO MUCH great information in its pages. At the time I got the book I was somewhat of a novice to solar building and was concerned that the book would have too much jargon or concepts that I didn't understand, but Chiras does such a great job explaining everything in layman's terms that by the time I finished the book I felt like an expert myself.
I HIGHLY recommend this to ANYone looking to building solar/green. I consider it the best of the bunch.
The Solar House: Passive Heating & Cooling.......2007-05-23
This book is excellent and received in great condition. Thank you. - jac
review for the solar house.......2007-05-12
This book has excellent ideas and descriptions for those wanting to build a green house. We got specific information and a clear view of what it takes to build a passive solar house.
very helpful book.......2007-03-19
The Solar House presents a detailed overview of passive solar design with specific region-based recommendations. I found that the technical information was well-researched and presented in an accessible way. There is a very helpful section on backup heating systems, which provides a basis for comparing the many options such as conventional gas and oil fired fixtures, radiant floor, masonry stoves, etc. This book should help people to design homes that are very energy efficient and comfortable to live in- the best of both worlds.
I found The Natural House more useful.......2007-01-30
While a good book, I found The Natural House more useful for my specific needs. To be honest, we decided not to go with solar power due to the cost (and lack of help with the price where we live, in TN) and due to the topography of our lot. The Natural House provided a great resource for other avenues of eco-friendly options for our new house, including various options for heating and cooling. If you are not sure how you want to heat your house yet and you are looking for more general information, I would recommend getting that book instead.
Book Description
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, PC-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.
Customer Reviews:
Fabulous and excellent EXCEPT for..........2007-06-13
First to address TJ in Houston's cooling problems. 1) movable awnings over windows and walls exposed to sunlight 2) slit windows at the bottom and top of the north side wall will allow heat to escape at the top which will pull cool air in at the bottom, especially at night and especially in a two story building. You might also explore cooling towers which essentially do the same thing.
I've been involved with building houses for several decades, and I've been thinking passive solar for quite some time too. In fact many of the ideas in this book are very similar to ideas I've developed independently.
I've seen everything on thousands of jobs from everyday homes to ultra gigantic mansions. One thing I've learned from the BEST builders is to avoid the experimental. Avoid extravagant shapes. Build simple buildings. Put your money into quality material and hardware... unless you want problems. And please keep the place neat. Nobody likes tripping over or cleaning up garbage the last guy left. Call your subs BEFORE you need them and ask them what drives them nuts, instead of finding out you made the same goof everyone makes, after you've spent a bunch of TIME and MONEY building it wrong.
I have to say the slab thing, and the ideas about the Sun's inclination etc are ingenious. They've changed my thinking considerably.
WHY THEN ONLY 3 STARS?
Well mainly some small, but galling, typos, and the lack of a website, or at least an obvious website. James needs to get feedback on these problems and the revisions need to be posted somewhere so they don't keep driving people nuts:
1) on page 76, Table 6-10 it says "see appendix 4." If you use appendix 4, like I did, it will totally confuse you and give you a headache. It SHOULD read appendix 5. The data on appendix 4 LOOKS like it MIGHT work which makes the problem worse. This one took me almost an hour to figure out.
2) The book has many pictures and come with even more on a CD, many useless, like a picture of a truck delivering stuff. I've seen trucks on roads before James. This is no help. However there is no CLEAR picture of HOW the slab is CONNECTED to the foundation walls. I'd like to see a close up. The diagrams are not clear enough on this issue. I don't have that much experience in this area and I'd like an answer. It seems to me that if the slab is in contact with the foundation wall there will be heat loss thought transmission from the slab to the foundation wall. Isn't that why the wall is insulated on the inside? If the slab does not contact the wall it seems to me that it's free floating which makes me nervous. In the diagram it looks like plywood ties the slab and wall together which make me think termites. Poured concrete slabs are usually tied together using rebar or similar. What is the secret?
3) on page 67 he goes though a series of equations to derive the elegant end equation I=Btus/hr·ºF. However you don't need the last equation to derive the information on the next pages. You need the NEXT to the last equation. It took me half and hour to get past that confusion. I kept looking for the LAST equation. Where oh where was it? The math is moderately difficult for us non engineer people but this typo made my head hurt. Ouch!
4) the diagram on page 46 appears to have a stud that makes a 45 degree turn and then another 45 degree turn??? I really don't think it does this, but I'll be durned if I can figure what they are trying to illustrate.
Anyway James, if you see this please put up a little tiny website with your email address please, so we can contact you about errors. A web appendix with corrected typos would be nice too. Websites are cheap and easy now days and you don't need much of a website really.
Otherwise great ideas.
Solar Home Design.......2007-01-10
I have been using this book as a text book for my class - Solar Home Design for the past several years because the thermal analysis worksheets are an excellent way for my students to learn the fundamental principles of energy & thermal performance of various building envelope systems. The worksheets allow my students to calculate any size or type of building and design for any location desired. Students conclude via the worksheets the Solar peformance ratios per month and annual solar performance , plus the needed supplemental heat required from a variety of heat sources.
This is an excellent book for teaching thermal performance and energy balances of residential buildings to adults interested in designing a comfortable Solar Home.
Subtitle Misleading - This Book is about Passive Solar Heating.......2006-11-29
A more accurate title / subtitle would be: The Passive Solar House: The Complete Guide to Heating Your Home. I say this because there is only a page and a half out of 224 pages given to cooling (that is pages 110-111). I realized that I may have purchased the wrong book when I read in the Preface the following:
"The knowledge imparted in this book has been accumulated from over 30 years of data gathered from several hundred solar homes located in the northern tier of the United States, from North Carolina to and including Canada and west to the mountain states. These are locations that are primarily focused on heating."
I live near the gulf coast, and was interested in learning about passive means to cool my home, in addition to heating. (As I write this just after midnight, at the end of November, my Air Conditioner is necessarily on!) This is probably a 4 to 5 star book for those living in the cooler regions of the country, and I do not intend to discourage those living in such areas from reading this book. And, if I move to a cooler region after retiring, I will probably pull this book out and review it.
Describes some original thinking into solar houses.......2006-11-14
This is the first book on solar house design that I've seen where the author is a professional engineer who worked in the housing industry. He built houses of the conventional design when energy was cheap. When the price of energy started going up he began looking into solar heated homes and eventually got a patent on a passive system that is remarkably inexpensive when compared with other systems.
Basically he designed a large mass of concrete that acts as a big heat sink. That is, when the house is warmer than the concrete, heat flows into the concrete, cooling the house. When the house is cooler. Heat flows out from the concrete, warming the house.
There are a lot of solar systems that work this way, the advantage of his is that it uses standard, i.e. cheap, concrete blocks and a poured slab. He further designs the layout of this concrete so that air would flow through passages in the concrete blocks without the necessity of having blowers to force the air through.
All in all, the book contains some very clever ideas, and has both simple explanations of how it works with enough theory and mathematics to enable you to design your own house. This is made easier through using the software contained on the CD supplied with the book. Here is a fairly complete, fairly simple design tool that will allow you to do a lot of the basic design work of your own solar home. This is not the style of your home, it is the design of the solar aspects.
Anyone thinking of a solar home would be foolish to not spend the few dollars this book costs to get and understand Mr. Kachadorian's concepts.
A welcome and "user friendly" guide.......2006-11-05
If this book's title sounds familiar, it's because it's a revised, expanded edition of a popular survey of the author's patented Solar Slab heat exchanger, which offers a technique for builders to produce houses that virtually heat themselves. THE PASSIVE SOLAR HOUSE: COMPLETE GUIDE TO HEATING AND COOLING YOUR HOME expands upon the prior edition, adding more knowledge gathered from some thirty years of data gathering from existing, successful solar houses. THE PASSIVE SOLAR HOUSE is a welcome and "user friendly" guide recommended to homeowners who are seeking to reduce the expenses of heating and cooling regardless of the age or condition of their houses.
Customer Reviews:
Down to earth, practical methodology book.......1999-01-22
From a number of books I have been reading on passive energy topics, Mazria's small book is the most concrete, understandable and organized. I designed my home using the book and the forecasted energy compsumption matched the calculations!
Excellent reference!.......1998-12-04
When I designed our first house this book was invaluable. We are now designing our second home and looked to see if there is an update. Unfortunately it has not been revised but then little has changed with the sun and mass and the book will once again be a valued resource.
absolutely indispensable!.......1998-06-08
A seminal reference on the fundamentals of solar design. Easily used, yet thorough and quantitative. Should be required reading for everyone in the architecture & building design fields. Sunfall info given here is relevant to every structure ever designed -- and if you actually use it, the info *will* improve your design!!
Book Description
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, PC-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.
Average customer rating:
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Affordable Passive Solar Homes : Low-Cost, Compact Designs
Richard L Crowther
Manufacturer: SciTech Pub. Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Residential
| Building Types & Styles
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Building Construction
| Construction
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0916653005 |
Average customer rating:
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Hawkweed Passive Solar House Book
Hawkweed Group
Manufacturer: Rand Mcnally
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning
| Construction
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0528880349 |
Amazon.com
It is easy to think of harvesting solar energy as a highly technical system involving wiring and plumbing and high-tech gadgets and gizmos you'd need an engineer to design and set up (and operate!). But really, every time you walk outside on a sunny day and every time you realize that the rooms on the south side of your home tend to get warmer during the day, you are witnessing solar energy at work. The beauty of passive solar energy is, for me, its "low-tech" approach, as the words imply. A bit of design foresight when building or remodeling your home will yield a wide set of possibilities for using solar energy to warm and cool your home. This is the book that can show you how. It is well illustrated and written for folks who may not have a technical degree. Not being a techno-wizard of any kind, I can understand this book, and I'll bet you can too!
Average customer rating:
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Passive Solar House Basics
Peter Van Dresser
Manufacturer: Ancient City Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Specific Styles
| Building Types & Styles
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Building Types & Styles
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Drawing & Modelling
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Building Construction
| Construction
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning
| Construction
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
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Design & Construction
| Home Design
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Home Design
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Conservation
| Environment
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0941270904 |
Book Description
Lays out in plain language what an owner/builder or designer will need to know about siting, designing, constructing, and living in a solar adobe home. Van Dresser's text and pictures provide a beginner's course in adobe construction and passive solar heat collection, including suggestions for natural heat circulation and heat storage in thermal mass. Included are sample house plans, ideas for solar hot water heaters, and plans-to-scale for solar crop dryers.
Customer Reviews:
Old Book New Title.......2002-05-25
This book is 25 years old and the info is very basic (2 stars) and dated. It was originally published in 1977 as "Homegrown Sundwellings" and has not been updated (except for the cover and the title)....
Book Description
The ultimate guide to achieving one's personal and professional goals. Includes how to develop charisma, nurture a sense of humor, build credibility, create an obligation bond with people, and develop likability.
Customer Reviews:
Roger Dawson at his best ! Keep reading about MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.......2006-01-19
You can't go wrong with ANY of his book. Don't look further, don't settle for less.
Unbelievable thing has happened to me -- I followed the advise in the book and received the promotion I wanted. Funny thing is that Roger warned that this method DOES work, and I didn't think it would work, but decided to give it a try.
Have YOU ever dreamt of getting a promotion shortly after starting a new job ??? I haven't, but it happened to me.
Thank you Mr. Dawson!!!!!!!
A psychological masterpiece.......2005-10-24
Wow. That's all I have to say. I'm halfway through this book, looking to finish it today (lol dreaming to), and I'm absolutely amazed. I have a hobby of studying books on psychology and sociology, and I've came across some good ones and some absolute rip-offs. Some of the bad ones go over some persuasion techniques that are very cliche and you have probably already heard of, and also don't offer much in the realm of content. In this book, however, every page has something to offer, and and it's all unique. What I expected out of this book was either a complete rip-off or that only a small bit of it would be useful, but I was very surprised at how satisfied I was with it. Among all the techniques in there I've found a lot that can be used in every day life, and I can actually imagine them working. It explains a lot about persuasion techniques you've came across but didn't recognize as such, and opens your eyes to an entirely new world of persuasion altogether. I'm actually planning on reading this book two or three times, and I think after that I might actually be a better persuader than I was before I bought it. All in all, this book is very professional and offers tons and tons of content. The authors life, which he uses ocassionally for examples in his techniques, shows how amazingly successful he is without it seeming like he's bragging. He has rented yaghts, probably went to every country in the world, has hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, climbs mountains, crazy. Anyway, if you're into persusasion I highly recommend this book. You will not be disappointed.
Informative and Entertaining to Read.......2004-11-06
Some of the topics in this book are just common-sense, some have been widely covered elsewhere and at much greater length (e.g. Cialdini's books on Influence), but all in all this is a lovely selection of the principles of persuasion and some case stories are very entertaining to read.
This book is information-rich, but there is still more you may want to learn to enhance your persuasive skills, such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Hypnotic Language Patterns.
One of the best business books I've read.......2002-07-10
Wow! I'm impressed! This is one of the best-researched, most thorough books on persuasion that I've had the pleasure of reading. Best of all - it's not just theory. The author, Roger Dawson adds tons of practical examples and applications for each technique. That means you can use this stuff immediately. By far one the best business books I've read in some time.
Secrets of Power Persuasion: Everything You'll Ever Need to.......2002-07-09
Great book. Extremely insightful. This book brings together lessons from many other disciplines and supplies new perspectives that are easy to apply. The book is easy to read and a diversified literary and historical background allow you to appreciate the subtle points that really demonstrate expertise in persuasion.
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- True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism--For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals
- Unwomanly Conduct: The Challenges of Intentional Childlessness
- Venetian Gardens
- Waterfront Homes: 189 Home Plans for River, Lake or Sea
- Waterside Living: Inspirational Homes By Lakes, Rivers, and the Sea
- What Every Parent Should Know About Pinewood Derby Cars and More
- What Was It Before It Was Orange Juice (What Was It Before - Let's Find Out Book)
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Books Index
Books Home
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