Customer Reviews

The New Autonomous House: Design and Planning for Sustainability

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This books contains some good information, but overall, I was disappointed. I expected real word schematics/drawings to support the design of an autonomous house, but what I got was reams of performance data relative to different types of construction. The drawings in the book are pencil sketches, worthless for any real world comparison. I found the writing style very verbose and intellectual and frankly, it put me to sleep. No fault of the author, but most of the calculations/examples were in metric values, so I found it difficult to correlate the data.

As a designer, I am always a little skeptical of books like this,but this one is great. It is not so "pie in the sky" that you couldn't afford to build the way they recommend. It is very practical for a homeowner and designer alike. I found the diagramming to be great and the basic ideas easy to conform to any project you might have. If you want off the grid without building an "Earth ship", this is a great idea grabber for you to start.

This is an excellent book, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. It describes in infinite detail a particular design for a particular place. I was hoping for information that would help me make changes to my existing home. For me, it was not particularly helpful, but for anyone who wants to start from scratch and design a new home, this would be a great reference.