Customer Reviews

The Sun-Inspired House: House Designs Warmed and Brightened by the Sun

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Coleman's book is a wealth of information on using the free power of the sun to heat and cool a home. This is practical information, tried and true, not weird machinations, to achieve environmentally-friendly, truly energy-efficient, eminently livable homes. The book is packed with essential information on actual house design, plus Sun Plans house designs using the technology, resources to find more information, information on the science and history behind the use of passive solar, as well as actual case histories of families living in passive solar homes designed by Coleman.

These homes have been built all over North America--from the wet Northwest, to the snowy Northeast, in between, and all over the South. As Coleman says, a passive solar home has to be designed for the particular locale to take full advantage of the sun's benefits.

My husband and I are so impressed with the practicality of Coleman's designs that we are building one of her homes ourselves.

A 'sun-inspired' room is sunny, open, warm in winter and cool in summer, and integrates sustainable design principles with efficiency and useful design basics. And THE SUN-INSPIRED HOUSE illustrates a range of concepts related to the sun, using fifty house plans to demonstrate integrated concepts. This is a collection of home designs which blends floor plans and modification ideas with sun-inspired homes for all climates. Blends of design and construction information provide an architect's expertise under one cover. What it lacks in glossy color photos is more than made up for in practical application designs and insider information paired with homeowner testimonials that they actually work. A top pick.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

My personal interest is in building a new home within the next 2 years. A home that is more friendly to the environment--that is smaller, and utilizing the sun in my home design. The information alone in this book is invaluable and the designs by the architect are amazing. What an awesome utilization of space and design she has created!

Debra Rucker Coleman's book, The Sun Inspired House, showcases passive solar houses that are comfortable the year around, light filled, beautiful, healthy for the residents, and good for the environment. These houses cut energy bills in half and cost very little additional to build. Coleman inspires the reader to want to live in a passive solar house, and walks them through the process of making that happen. Her reviews of current books, design analysis software, and websites point the way to more detailed information on all aspects of the design and construction process.
With over 25 years experience working and living with passive and active solar systems, this is the book on passive solar design I recommend for prospective homeowners, architects, and homebuilders.
Daryl Bergquist, Earth Steward Solar Consulting, Blountsville, Alabama

This book defines the basic components of a pasive solar home and provides guidelines for building a home with plenty of house plans as examples. It also lists lots of references for more technical information about both passive and active solar heating and cooling.

I really like this book and their web site also. I am in a planning stage of building a house and at this time I think I will use the author to design my home when I am ready. They have many good ideas. Buy this book, it is a good one.

This book is OK if you know absolutely nothing about passive solar. Frankly, one can learn much more about passive solar by just Googling on the Internet. For example, Google "passive solar energysaver.gov", "passive solar susdesign", or "passive solar greenenergyohio.org".

This book is mostly an advertisement of the author's house plans...as others who do NOT have a vested interest in this book have already indicated. We tried to purchase a plan from the author and contracted with her to make what should have been very simple changes to this plan. Her contracts have a clause that allow her to stop work for whatever reason she chooses...and after wasting a significant amount of our time answering her insignificant questions at our expense, that's exactly what she did...and we never received anything useable. We would describe our experience sort of like a combination bait & switch and predatory pricing scam. Fortunately our credit card company agreed and thankfully came to our rescue. So we would definitely advise applying due diligence if considering to do business with this author.

The best current book we have found on passive solar design is by Daniel D. Chiras, "The Solar House". Another relatively current book that is also excellent is James Kachadorian's "The Passive Solar House", although the slab construction recommendations are likely dated and no longer considered best practice. The best all-time book by far that we have in our library is Edward Mazria's "The Passive Solar Energy Book, Expanded Professional Edition". Edward Mazria's book contains all the information necessary to properly design a solar passive house. The only negative is that it is 1979 Copyright, out of print, and may be hard to acquire.

We also discovered a much easier, more economical, and ultimately better passive solar house design approach....purchase architectural house design software and just accomplish the design yourself. We purchased Chief Architect X3 and we were easily able to create our own construction drawings and obtain state county approval in much less time than we wasted working with the author of this book. These days, most architectural design software is very easy to use, very powerful, and conforms to all IRC requirements. In most states as long as the house is less than 4000 SF and under 20 feet high, you do not even need an architect or registered engineer to approve the plans. If you do need plan approval, it is usually much more affordable to just use a registered engineer recommended by the state county planning office you are seeking plan approval and just revise the plans yourself if required. We are blessed in that one of us is a registered engineer.

If one is really motivated and reasonably competent with construction (or willing to spend some time learning), it isn't very difficult to get a Residential General Contractor license in most states. This typically involves taking a mandatory course, passing an exam (mostly on federal/state regulations and law), and getting the required liability insurance and surety bond. While one doesn't need a RGC license to build one's own house (unless you intend to sell it near-term), having a RGC license does allow one to have have more enforceable sub-contracts and one can easily save 30% of the cost of building a house. Of course, one has to be willing to assume the responsibility that comes with being a RGC and devoting the time necessary to properly organize, contract and supervise any subs that you may need to hire. Google "build your own home" for more info on this subject. We are blessed in that both of us are RGCs.

Also don't forget to consider putting a masonry heater and hydronic floor heating in your passive solar house! Passive solar will not provide 100% of your heating requirements. You will need a backup heating system that works when you are home and also when you are away from from home. Most folks prefer the comfortable and healthful heating provided by a masonry heater and hydronic floor heating. The best book we have found on masonry heaters is Ken Matesz's, "Masonry Heaters: Designing, Building, and Living with a Piece of the Sun". The best book we have found on hydronic floor heating is John Siegenthaler's, "Modern Hydronic Heating".

We have calculated that our annual home BTU heat loss for our 1700 SF home will be 46 million BTU's (R29 walls, R49 ceiling and Medford OR climate). The house passive solar design will provide 25 million of these BTU's (about 55% of our total heating requirements). When we are home, our 90+% efficient masonry heater will backup the passive solar design and provide the BTU difference. When we are away, the hydronic floor heating system will backup the passive solar design and provide the BTU difference. The hydronic floor heating system will also be used during the winter months to keep the floors in most rooms at a comfortable temperature and to keep the bathroom floors nice and warm. Since the required hydronic floor heating system water supply temperature is only 94 deg F, we can use a condensing boiler that is 95+% efficient (the exhaust temperature is so low that standard PVC can be used). Either the masonry heater OR the hydronic floor heating system is each fully capable of providing 100% of our total daily/monthly heating requirements, if necessary.

We apologize for the lengthy review and for digressing from the pure passive solar book review by commenting on house plans, actual construction, hydronic floor heating and masonry heaters. However, if one is really interested in passive solar, one will eventually need to address all the rest too and it is always worthwhile to benefit from other's lessons learned. Best wishes with your passive solar house project!

Gayle & Bob

i like the book a lot. it has good beginning information, and good resources in the back.

While this book contains limited basic information regarding solar design, it really is a house plan book. Unless you are interested in buying her house plans, save your money.