Building for Energy Independence: Sun/Earth Buffering and Superinsulation

Sun/Earth Buffering and Superinsulation: Building for Energy Independence

Building for Energy Independence: Sun/Earth Buffering and SuperinsulationAuthor(s): Don Booth, Jonathan Booth, Peg Boyles

Publisher: Rodale Pr (September 1984)

Paperback:
ISBN: 0960442235
ISBN-13: 978-0960442232
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Hardbound:
ISBN-10: 0960442243
ISBN-13: 978-0960442249
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Back in 1983 Don Booth’s company, Community Builders was one of the premier developers of energy efficient homes in New England. This privately published book was probably written to help prospective customer’s understand the technology and boost sales. No matter what his reason, Don’s book became a classic of the genre. Calling upon his experience, he goes step-by-step through the theory and practice of building super insulated and passive solar/geothermal homes. The explanations are clear, the examples are informative and it provides just the right amount of technical detail. If you are planning to build a new home, read this book first. The principles you learn here will save you thousands of heating and cooling dollars. It has already saved me from a very expensive mistake.

Unlike most books on this topic, you can actually read this book without stunning your brain. Instead of bulking up the book with endless pages of sun elevation charts or conversion tables, Don includes twenty ‘reviews’ of solar/geothermal homes by their owners, designers and builders. These vary from the comic to the insane as the early pioneers struggle to build their dream homes. Some of these stories would make good movies. My personal favorite is the lady who lives in a tent on the site while her home is built. We watch with dismay as construction delays move completion deep into the cold New England winter. Finally, she moves gleefully into the shell while waiting for the windows, only to have her children complain that the tent was warmer. Who says we can’t learn from the mistakes of others.

The Passive Solar House: Using Solar Design to Heat and Cool Your Home

The Passive Solar House: Using Solar Design to Heat and Cool Your Home

The Passive Solar House: Using Solar Design to Heat and Cool Your Home

Author(s): James Kachadorian

Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub Co

Paperback: 220 pages

ISBN: 0930031970

ISBN-13: 978-0930031978

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Published in concert with the Real Goods Trading Company of California, this book explains in detail the whys and wherefores of a particular form of passive solar design, formerly patented but now in the public domain. The patent was held by the author and used while he was president of Green Mountain Homes, a fabricator of post-and-beam kit homes. The science he used and describes here is settled and elegant, even quaint, and is detailed to a degree that could be off-putting to some readers. On the bright side, the enthusiasm he brings to the subject is useful, even to those prospective homebuilders who may not be interested in solar heating and cooling. The book is suffused with a sensitivity to environmental issues of all sorts, a useful perspective in these resource-limited times. An essentially simple book, elegant in presentation and forceful in argument; recommended for extensive scientific (for the references and associated calculations) and/or broader home-building collections. -Alexander Hartmann, INFOPHILE, Williamsport, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Finally there is a contemporary book that demonstrates the potential for heating and cooling a home with free energy. This new volume is a welcome addition to the canon of indispensable solar construction books, bringing fully up to date for the 1990s the legendary promise of 1970s-era solar pioneers: the promise of a home that heats and cools itself with minimal use of a back-up furnace.Whether you are adopting the model developed by Jim Kachadorian or using another designer’s layout and plan, The Passive Solar House will provide you with pragmatic, immediately applicable solar design advice that is usable in any region or climate. Information includes:
— Proper siting and strategic window selection and placement
— Energy and money-saving construction tips
— Ideal air-exchange rates, and ways to avoid overheating
— Methods for gauging and maximizing thermal mass
— Criteria for sizing of back-up heating systems
— Interior design for year-round comfort

This book is brimful of worthwhile, constructive how-to advice, and gives readers the basis for understanding the hows and whys of solar design, including a succinct presentation of ten key solar-design principles that have defined and guided solar architecture for thousands of years.

 

Card catalog description
This book offers a technique for building homes that heat and cool themselves in a wide range of different climates, using ordinary building materials available anywhere and with methods familiar to all building contractors and many do-it-yourselfers. A formerly patented design for author James Kachadorian’s Solar Slab heat exchanger is now available for the use of anyone motivated by the desire to build a house that needs a backup furnace or air conditioner rarely if ever. This is a building book for the next century. Applicable to a diversity of regions, climates, budgets, and styles of architecture, Kachadorian’s techniques translate the essentials of timeless solar design (siting a home in harmony with nature, using windows as solar collectors, achieving year-round comfort by balancing good insulation with healthy supplies of fresh air) into practical wisdom for today’s new generation of solar builders. Customer Comments bereznov@worldnet.att.net from Longmont, Colorado , 10/25/97, rating=9:
Passive solar design basics, formulae and needed databases An excellent book for the beginner in passive solar home design with a cookbook approach and worksheets to calculate the solar performance of you building design. Usefull tables needed for calculations are included but only for a limited number of localities. Based upon a sound, albiet more than 20 year old, approach to passive solar design. An easy to understand process for the design of a truely passive home with methods to determine the need for and cost of supplemental heat in many areas of the country. Principles throughout the book may be applied to other designs. A detailed explanation and instructions on building the solar slab. Well worth the price of admission!

Table of Contents
1. Let Nature Heat Your Home
2. The Passive Solar Concept
3. The Solar Slab and Basic Solar Design
4. Insulation, Venting, and Fresh Air
5. Basic Layouts and Floor Plans
6. How to Do the Solar Design Calculations
7. The Foundation Plan, and Backup Heating and Cooling
8. A Sidehill Variation, and Solar Design Worksheets
9. Sunspaces, and Special Design Considerations
10. Interior Design for Year-Round Comfort By Cornelia C. Kachadorian
App. 1. Solar Design Worksheets
App. 2. Solar Intensity and Solar Heat Gain Factors for 16 to 64 degrees North Latitude
App. 3. Thermal Properties of Typical Building and Insulating Materials (Design Values)
App. 4. North Latitude, Elevation, and Outside Winter Design Temperatures for Selected Cities in the U.S. and Canada
App. 5. Average Monthly and Yearly Degree Days for Cities in the U.S. and Canada
App. 6. Mean Percentage of Possible Sunshine for Selected Cities in the U.S. and Canada
App. 7. Isogonic Chart (Magnetic Declination)
Index

Heating, Cooling, Lighting : Design Methods for Architects

Heating, Cooling, Lighting : Design Methods for Architects

Heating, Cooling, Lighting : Design Methods for Architects

Author(s): Norbet M. Lechner

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

ISBN: 0471628875

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Heating, Cooling, Lighting : Design Methods for Architects

Paperback, 544 pages
Publication date: January 1991

The publisher, John Wiley & Sons:
Using a qualitative rather than a quantitative approach, presents detailed information based on concepts, rules, guidelines, intuition, and experience for architects in the areas of heating, cooling, and lighting at the schematic design stage. The data explored supports a three-tiered approach–load avoidance, using natural energy sources, and mechanical equipment. Among the topics covered are shading, thermal envelope, passive heating and cooling, electric lighting, and HVAC. Case studies illustrate how certain buildings use techniques at all three tiers for heating, cooling, and lighting. An appendix lists some of the more appropriate computer programs available to the architect for analysis at the schematic design stage.

Table of Contents

  • Heating, Cooling, and Lighting as Form-Givers in Architecture
  • Basic Principles
  • Thermal Comfort
  • Climate
  • Solar Radiation
  • Passive Solar
  • Shading
  • Passive Cooling
  • Site and Community Planning
  • Lighting
  • Electric Lighting
  • Daylighting
  • Energy Efficiency: Keeping Warm and Staying Cool
  • Mechanical Equipment for Heating and Cooling
  • Case Studies
  • Energy Sources
  • Appendices
  • Bibliography
  • Recommended General Sources
  • Index.
Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 2nd Edition

Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 2nd Edition

Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 2nd Edition

Author(s): G. Z. Brown and Mark DeKay

Paperback: 400 pages

Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (October 24, 2000)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0471348775

ISBN-13: 978-0471348771

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Shaped to the broad conceptual needs of the designer at the schematic design stage, this book presents the methods necessary for the efficient interplay of nature — sun, wind and light–and architectural forms–building groups, buildings and building parts — when designing buildings. The material helps architectural designers understand the energy consequences of their most basic design decisions and how to use energy issues as inspiration rather than as limits to be accomodated.

Sun, Wind and Light was developed for rapid use during schematic design. It clarifies the relationship between form and energy and gives designers valuable tools for sustainable design. It also:

* Applies the latest passive energy and lighting design research.
* Organizes information by architectural elements at three scales: building groups, individual buildings and building parts.
* Brings design strategies to life with examples and practical design tools.

Sun, Wind and Light features 109 analysis techniques and design strategies. Metric and inch-pound units are used.

The overall organization — from analysis techniques, design strategies, to strategies for supplementing passive systems — allows the designer to make sure, swift progress from the articulation of a strategy to its well-conceived rendering on paper. G.Z. Brown is a registered architect and professor of architecture at the University of Oregon. Mark DeKay is a registered architect, assistant professor of architecture at Washington University and a 2000 Fulbright Fellow to India. Illustrations by Virginia Cartwright, Mark DeKay, Chi-Wen Hung, Pallavi Kalia, Arjun Mande.

382-page book, 750 illustrations, charts and tables, 2001

The Passive Solar Design and Construction Handbook

The Passive Solar Design and Construction Handbook

The Passive Solar Design and Construction Handbook

Author(s): Michael J. Crosbie (Editor)

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Hardcover: 291 pages

ISBN: 0471183083

ISBN-13: 978-0471183082

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Publication date: October 1997

The only complete guide to passive solar design and construction

The Passive Solar Design and Construction Handbook is an unbeatable guide for architects and building contractors who want to satisfy the growing demand for passive solar residential design. A complete revision of the bible of passive solar design originally published by the U.S. Department of Energy, this is the only comprehensive guide to adapting standard building practices to current passive solar applications. It supplies detailed, step-by-step information on all practical aspects of passive solar design and construction and fills you in on all the latest advances in materials and building techniques–including the most recent findings on material and assembly performance. You’ll also find the latest techniques for computer simulation and energy analysis.

This timely and informative book:
* Reviews passive solar design principles
* Discusses the unique design opportunities inherent in passive solar homes
* Describes the various solar home types
* Introduces the principles of “whole-house” design
* Includes more than 300 illustrations, complete construction details and notes, and dozens of helpful case studies
* Explores important regional issues, such as termite shields, pressure treating wood, attic ventilation, and special structural requirements in seismic areas.

For building contractors, architects, and anyone interested in state-of-the-art passive solar construction, The Passive Solar Design and Construction Handbook saves hours of research and provides the complete, authoritative, up-to-date information that professionals need to take on a challenging job with confidence.

From the Publisher

The bible of passive solar design has been completely revised and updated. Extensive use of detailed drawings and case studies provide design and construction specifics. Includes updated information on material and assembly performance and computer simulation and analysis, plus the latest advances in materials and techniques.

Table of Contents
Passive Solar Fundamentals
Direct Gain
Thermal Storage Wall
Attached Sunspace
Convective Loop
Materials
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.

The Solar House: Passive Heating and Cooling

The Solar House: Passive Heating and Cooling

The Solar House: Passive Heating and CoolingAuthor(s): Dan Chiras
Paperback: 286 pages
Publisher: Chelsea Green (October 1, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1931498121
ISBN-13: 978-1931498128

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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.

Natural Ventilation in Buildings: A Design Handbook

Natural Ventilation in Buildings: A Design Handbook

Natural Ventilation in Buildings: A Design Handbook

Author(s): Francis Allard, Ed.

Hardcover: 366 pages

Publisher: Routledge (February 1, 1998)

ISBN: 1873936729

ISBN-13: 978-1873936726

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Ventilating buildings naturally — with minimal use of mechanical devices — offers environmental, economic, comfort and health benefits. Approaches can be high-tech or low-tech, but always need to be part of an integrated design strategy. A range of technical barriers, such as building codes, fire regulations and acoustics, also need to be taken into account.

This new handbook describes the real potential of natural ventilation, its appropriate use, the design and dimensioning methodologies, the need for an integrated design approach, and how to overcome barriers. It includes a CD-ROM with software to assist in the calculation of airflow rate in natural ventilation configurations. This air flow modelling software is a bonus and does not form an integral part of the book, so you will derive maximum benefit from the book without having to use the software. The software requires at least a 486DX, Windows 3.1 (or higher), 5Mb free hard disk space for installation, 16Mb RAM and VGA Monitor 640×480. The program makes considerable use of virtual memory. While these are minimum requirements, a more advanced computer is recommended.

The book will provide essential design information for architects, building engineers and other building design professionals. Published in the United Kingdom.

368 pages, 1998, Hardcover

…this is an exceptionally well researched book on a subject of great importance and some controversy… WORLD ARCHITECTURE

Thermal Delight in Architecture

Thermal Delight in Architecture

Thermal Delight in ArchitectureAuthor(s): Lisa Heschong

Publisher: Mit Press

ISBN: 026258039X

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Our thermal environment is as rich in cultural associations as our visual, acoustic, olfactory, and tactile environments. This book explores the potential for using thermal qualities as an expressive element in building design.Until quite recently, building technology and design has favored high-energy-consuming mechanical methods of neutralizing the thermal environment. It has not responded to the various ways that people use, remember, and care about the thermal environment and how they associate their thermal sense with their other senses. The hearth fire, the sauna, the Roman and Japanese baths, and the Islamic garden are discussed as archetypes of thermal delight about which rituals have developed — reinforcing bonds of affection and ceremony forged in the thermal experience. Not only is thermal symbolism now obsolete but the modern emphasis on central heating systems and air conditioning and hermetically sealed buildings has actually damaged our thermal coping and sensing mechanisms. This book for the solar age could help change all that and open up for us a new dimension of architectural experience.

Paperback
Publication date: January 1980

Passive Solar Buildings (Solar Heat Technologies : Fundamentals and Applications, Vol 7)

Passive Solar Buildings (Solar Heat Technologies : Fundamentals and Applications, Vol 7)

Passive Solar Buildings (Solar Heat Technologies : Fundamentals and Applications, Vol 7)Author(s): J. Douglas Balcomb (Editor)

Publisher: MIT Press

ISBN: 0262023415

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Passive Solar Buildings (Solar Heat Technologies : Fundamentals and Applications, Vol 7)

Hardcover, 534 pages
Publication date: August 1992

Booknews, Inc, 12/01/92:
This companion to Passive cooling and Solar building architecture covers passive solar heating of residential and commercial buildings. The information is primarily analytical and quantitative. About half the volume is devoted to quantitative methods for modeling, simulation, and design analysis of passive buildings; the other half summarizes the quantitative results of testing and monitoring of models and buildings. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Table of Contents
Series Foreword By Charles A. Bankston
1. Introduction By J. Douglas Balcomb
2. Building Solar Gain Modeling By Patrick J. Burns
3. Simulation Analysis By Philip W. B. Niles
4. Simplified Methods By G. F. Jones, William O. Wray
5. Materials and Components By Timothy E. Johnson
6. Analytical Results for Specific Systems By Robert W. Jones
7. Test Modules By Fuller Moore
8. Building Integration By Michael J. Holtz
9. Performance Monitoring and Results By Donald J. Frey
10. Design Tools By John S. Reynolds
Contributors
Index

Passive Solar House Basics

Passive Solar House Basics

Passive Solar House BasicsAuthor(s): Peter Van Dresser

Publisher: Ancient City Press

ISBN: 0941270904

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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.

From the Back Cover

How-To House Construction Solar Anyone who has been in a solar house, on a cold winter day has felt the warmth and comfort of its natural radiant heat. In 1958, solar pioneer Peter van Dresser built his first solor-heated house, one of the two oldest in the United States. In Passive Solar House Basics, van Dresser lats out in text and illustrations the principles an owner builder will need to know in siting, designing, building, and living in their solar house. Several sample house plans, ideas for solar hot water heaters, and plans for solar crop dryers give the solar enthusiast the basic information they will need to begin plans on their energy efficient home. In this book van Dresser shows that solar energy can be economically harnessed by simple means. Means that are within the grasp of the average homeowner and builder. “…an everyman’s guide that could easily become the textbook for the beginning professional in the arts and sciences of buildings.” -Jeffrey Cook, College of Architecture Arizone State University

136 pages Publication date: April 1996