Customer Reviews

Solar House: A Guide for the Solar Designer

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

 

 

If you're looking for the story of one house being built with solar and other "green" technologies, this is a pretty good one. Examples are sometimes the best way to learn. The dedication to scientific perfection in the design and construction of this single house (tile, windows, concrete, automation systems, etc) is what really excited me from chapter to chapter.

However, the book gets a little off-track in several areas. In one section there is at-length discussion about growing vegetables in your solarium. It also veers off into hydrogen and hybrid gas/electric cars for a few pages, which is not really helpful since we've purchased a book entitled "Solar House".

I'd also be inclined to think that a better-organized book with more examples, in more of a "how to" form, would be more useful for the average solar home designer.

I could have used more pictures of the project, too. They never really give us a full 360 view of the house, which, if the book is going to be about one house and how it was built, seems pretty important.

It's a cool book, but there are probably better options out there for those who are going to be getting their hands dirty in the near future.

This is a complete guide to the solar house, with super-efficiency built in! It is a very well thought through design for a super efficient modern solar home. Has a comprehensive menu of things to deal with when designing/building a solar home, including "smart" house features like computerized controls. Very scientific, very informative with lots of examples, photos, charts and graphs.

A must for solar home designers/builders or the interested.

I am a voracious reader on anything that could remotely fall under the sustainable topic. I was at the library and ran across this book and at first thought it is over 4 years old then add 1 year for publishing and well the info is going to be outdated. But to my shock this book was so detailed that the system about how the author automates his home for energy performance can be done even better today but using newer technologies. So it is relevant. Personally I am looking to build a super insulated ICF home. I want to understand how the thermal mass is going to effect the home so I can right size my equipment. In short the technologies to do this cost money. But it helps you regain your return on investment faster if you take mimic his steps in creating a way to monitor your home most efficiently.