The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy


Book Description

Presents information on how to improve a home's energy efficiency and switch to renewable energy resourses to provide electricity, hot water, heat, and cooling for a home.




The Homeowner's Energy Handbook


Book Description

Discusses renewable energy resources and provides instructions for creating energy-saving and energy-producing equipment.




Sunset Homeowner's Guide to Solar Heating and Cooling


Book Description

In a clear, nontechnical language, this book explains how solar heating works and how it can be applied to your home - in active and passive space heating, domestic water heating, and pool heating.




Solar Home Heating Basics


Book Description

As fossil fuel supplies dwindle, home heating will be one of the major challenges in temperate and cold climates in upcoming years. The reserves of natural gas used to heat the majority of North American buildings are rapidly being depleted. This latest Green Energy Guide helps readers who want to slash their energy bills and reduce their dependence on scarce resources to navigate the sometimes confusing maze of clean, reliable, and affordable options. Solar Home Heating Basics focuses on renewable energy strategies to heat new and existing homes and small businesses. These include: *Energy efficiency, weatherization, and insulation *Solar hot air heating *Solar thermal systems *Passive solar heating *Backup heating systems While most solar home heating resources are geared primarily towards new buildings, this practical guide addresses ways of retrofitting existing buildings, making solar a reality for many people. Packed with all the essential information home and small business owners need to find alternatives to conventional heating solutions, Solar Home Heating Basics is your key to a personal energy solution. Dan Chiras is a respected educator and the author of thirty books on residential renewable energy and green building, including The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy and Power from the Sun. Dan is the director and lead instructor at the Evergreen Institute's Center for Renewable Energy and Green Building, where he teaches workshops on energy efficiency, solar electricity, solar hot water, small wind energy, green building, natural plasters, and natural building.




Natural Home Heating


Book Description

"Natural Home Heating" is the first comprehensive guide to heating your home with renewable energy sources. Greg Pahl offers a well-organized, easy-to-understand tour of all available home-heating options, including traditional oil and gas furnaces, wood stoves and masonry heaters, active and passive solar systems, and heat pumps. Included is everything you need to know about the fuels, systems, technologies, costs, and advantages and disadvantages of each option. Pahl teaches homeowners how to retrofit existing heating systems and choose renewable replacements, or design an entirely new house that can be heated comfortably with minimal environmental and financial impact. Consider: - 95% of American homes are heated with fossil fuels. - Oil and gas prices are up by more than 20% as supplies dwindle and sources become less reliable. - Home heating costs could double or even triple in the event of a fuel crisis. - The fossil fuel economy is unsustainable. - There are viable, clean, healthy, and afford able home heating alternatives! Learn how to burn environmentally friendly bio-diesel fuels, not just in your car, but in your furnace. Find out how a ground-source heat pump works and why it can achieve 400% heating efficiency. Discover what it takes to make burning wood truly sustainable. Natural Home Heating explains all these details and more, making it unique in the marketplace.




Solar Rooftop DIY: The Homeowner's Guide to Installing Your Own Photovoltaic Energy System (Countryman Know How)


Book Description

The do-it-yourself guide for converting your home to solar power Solar energy is clean, efficient, sustainable—and expensive. Or is it? Many homeowners simply assume that the cost of solar panels is out of their reach, but in reality, the technology is quickly becoming attainable for the middle class. Rather than leasing panels from one of those home solar startups (and letting them reap the financial benefits), why not join the thousands who are doing it themselves? In Solar Rooftop DIY, sustainable energy expert Mike Sullivan offers five design plans—ranging from a few simple panels to a complex, roof-covering array—for building a rooftop PV energy system for any home. Each plan has clear and detailed step-by-step photographs showing the installation process. Many of them require no additional labor—just a few days' commitment for the average weekend warrior. With energy costs only set to increase in the future, now is the time to make the switch to solar and start selling power back to the grid.




Solar Electricity Basics


Book Description

Solar energy is an abundant resource. Once a curiosity, solar electric systems are becoming commonplace. As we transition away from finite and polluting fossil fuels, clean, reliable, and affordable renewable technologies such as solar electricity will become the mainstay of our energy supply. Solar Electricity Basics provides a clear understanding of the sun, solar energy, and solar electric systems. It discusses the theoretical, practical and economic aspects of residential solar installations including: Inverters Batteries and controllers Costs of solar electric systems Financial incentives System installation and maintenance Permits, covenants, utility interconnection and buying a system. Whether your goal is to lower your energy bill through a grid-connected system or to achieve complete energy independence, Solar Electricity Basics is the introduction you need-no PhD required!




The Complete Idiot's Guide to Renewable Energy for Your Home


Book Description

An essential how-to on powering your home with sun, wind, water, and more. For readers wanting to save money-and the planet-by using alternative energy, this book provides everything they need to know. The five basic sources are fully covered: sun, wind, water, earth, and bio. The benefits, what is needed, and whether it will work for a particular home are all carefully laid out in this comprehensive overview: ? Solar energy for home heating, water heating, and electricity ? Wind power, hydrogen, and micro hydro power ? Heat pumps-air, geothermal, and water source ? Heating with wood and going bio




A Field Guide to Renewable Energy Technologies


Book Description

In the near future we will be surrounded by the most diverse ecosystem of renewable energy technologies and energy landscapes, each a reflection of local culture and context. This field guide will help you to distinguish between a semiconductor-based artificial photosynthetic cell, a piezoelectric generator, a triboelectric fabric, or a dye-sensitized solar cell, just to name a few examples. It is a useful reference for designers, artists, architects, engineers, landscape architects, and anyone who wants to reduce the carbon footprint of the world by integrating renewable energy beautifully into buildings, products, cities, and artworks.




The Homeowner's Handbook to Energy Efficiency


Book Description

In The Homeowner's Guide to Energy Efficiency, John Krigger and Chris Dorsi help homeowners set realistic personal goals for reducing their energy consumption. Their methods for making homes more energy efficient will also improve comfort, safety, durability, and resale value. They guide readers through the process of assessing current energy usage and predicting the benefits and estimating the costs of remodeling options. With projects ranging from simple fixes to large-scale renovations, this book offers solutions for the energy-conscious homeowner, regardless of budget, technical ability, or time.