Customer Reviews

Green Building & Remodeling For Dummies

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4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
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I am truly a dummy when it comes to green building, I've never bought a dummies book before - but wanted to remodel my kitchen and needed some expert green advice. The book is broken down into these really helpful sections like finishes, water and energy. It even includes helpful checklists to remodel your kitchen in a green way. The advice I learned from this book will probably save me thousands in construction costs and will continue to save me $$$ on my water and energy bills. The author presents the info in a very fun and logical way. Anyone building or remodeling their home should do it green - and definitely needs this book to guide them every step of the way. The reason I bought this book is that I heard the author speak at a local green conference, and the way he presented the information just made sense to me.

Green architect Eric Corey Freed knows his stuff and it shows in Green Building and Remodeling for Dummies.

Freed makes green building and remodeling approachable and very doable.

I like the checklists throughout the book and the perfect green rooms, both of which make understanding the big picture easy.

Freed does an excellent job in explaining the advantages of building green for the health of the occupants and the environment.

If you've ever wondered what the true environmental cost of a particular product is, Freed does a great job of explaining it in "the life cycle of materials from cradle to grave." If you didn't "get" greeen before, this section will show you how important it is to look at the entire life cycle of a product to determine how green--or not--a particular product is.

I also liked the handy list of green material substitutes which make purchasing very easy.

The book was very readable and concise and even fun to read. I highly recommend it.

By the author of the award winning book, Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify and Energize Your Life, Your Home and Your Planet

Green Building & Remodeling for DUMMIES is the right information at the right time. This book answers every specific question I have come up with. It dispells many old myths about green building, and teaches that green is not only accessible, but it's enjoyable. You can't calculate the $$ payback of a more comfortable home. You can't put a $$ value on the improved respiuratory health that improved indoor air quality provides. But you can take those monthly energy and water savings to the bank every month. Thanks to Mr. Freed for his passion and his pragmatism.

I have a number of the Dummies books on various topics, and had an interest in how one might "green" an existing home, or build a new one. One thing I learned recently is that 50% of the energy lost from a typical house is due to poor building insulation, and that's one area in which most houses, depending on where in the U.S. they're built, could be improved. Since we wanted to beef up our house's insulation, we had a type of insulation installed that was more green than the other choices, and that is equally effective. If you're building a house from scratch, this book has a lot more information on many other topics relating to green building, including materials, construction, design ideas, energy saving tips and ideas, and many more topics on the subject.

This book gives a great overview of various green building options for homes. It has a lot of practical and useful information for the beginner or even the advanced green building enthusiast. It also contains a really helpful list of resources for further research. I would have liked a little more information on solar and geothermal, but the book isn't designed to give thoroughly detailed information about every option. I would highly recommend this book.

We are planning to build a house sometime in the next 2 years and we just wantedto get a little info on how we could "green it up" a little. Well this book was full of valuable info! There were so many things that were listed in this book that we had no clue about. Before we thought that we would just try to do a few easy little things to help the enivironment, but now we are thinkng of building a almost completely Green home. We found out from reading this book that it will save us lots of $$$$ in the future and that a lot of things aren't too expensive. Plus saving the earth is at the top of the list. If you just want to get some basic ideas about how to get started then this is the book for you. If you already know about the basics and you want more detailed info on how to do things like solar pannels and such, then you should go for the "dummies" books on each individual subject. That will help you a lot more. Go Green and save the earth!

Great info. in an easy to read format. Really enjoyed learning about different products and solutions.

I am a green nut, so any book that is "green" is good to me. Stating that first I will say this is a great book on the subject. I will say that a few books on the market are better, but with any Dummies book you get a pretty good base to expand on.

This was bought as a gift for my boyfriend and he read the whole book and said it was very good, great detail and easy to understand language.

This book has a lot of great ideas, however it has a very strong bias in certain areas such as wind energy being very poor cost efficient method of energy production. It goes in to depth about solar panels and offers alot of great ideas for cheap energy efficient housing ideas way above and beyond the average methods.