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Before you build your home, read this definitive guide to designing with the sun in mind by MOTHER EARTH NEWS contributing editor Dan Chiras. Learn how you can cut your energy bills in half by choosing the best passive solar heating and cooling techniques.

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 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, 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.

About the Author
Daniel D. Chiras is the author of The Natural House. He holds a Ph.D. in physiology and teaches courses on sustainability and environmental health at the universities of Colorado and Denver. He is the author of five college and high school text books as well as other books on global environmental issues. Chiras is also an avid musician, organic gardener, river runner and bicyclist. He lives with his family in a passive solar/solar electric, straw bale and rammed tire house in Evergreen, Colorado.

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A well-organized, easy-to-understand review of renewable home-heating options that includes everything you need to know about passive and active solar systems, wood and pellet stoves, masonry heaters and air- and ground- source heat pumps.

Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to its readers. For more than 30 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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This 38-page solar-energy guide is one of the most unique ever written on the topic. Subjects covered include how to make hot air and water, solar concentration and water pasteurization. Author Steven E. Harris also shows you where to get the glass and PV panels for free!

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Learn how to get the most bang for your energy buck. The Home Energy Diet, a MOTHER EARTH NEWS Book for Wiser Living, was designed to help readers take control of their personal energy usage and costs so they can save money, live more comfortably and help reduce environmental impacts. With rising energy costs, homeowners are beginning to examine the energy efficiency of their own homes, asking questions about where energy comes from and how much it costs, how to choose new appliances and what options exist for renewable energy.

The Home Energy Diet answers all these questions and more while helping readers take control of their personal energy use and costs so they can save money, live more comfortably and help the environment. Energy auditor Paul Scheckel first explores energy literacy, and then describes how your home uses-and loses-energy you pay for through electricity, hot water, heating and air conditioning, and windows, walls and insulation.

The Home Energy Diet involves readers in learning about their own homes by: measuring, metering, investigating and considering habits related to household energy use; learning how to quantify energy consumption and cost and making informed decisions about cost-effective improvements and upgrades. The book explores the misunderstood concept of efficiency versus cost by comparing fuel costs and equipment choices, including the possibility of using renewable energy for meeting home energy needs. This authoritative guide makes efficiency fun through personal anecdotes and humorous tales-from-the-basement energy misadventures.

About the author:

Paul Scheckel is an energy auditor who has visited thousands of homes, educating people about energy efficiency, cost-effective improvements and indoor air quality. With a passion for efficiency and renewables, he walks the talk by living in a solar-powered house and driving a car powered by vegetable oil in his home state of Vermont.

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This new book confronts the ecological and cultural problems associated with the way we acquire and use energy. It also explains how it is possible to live in a beautifully designed home using much less energy — anywhere in the world.

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This MOTHER EARTH NEWS Book for Wiser Living, helps you understand the sometimes confusing array of renewable energy technologies and techniques, plus shows how you can slash energy bills.

The coming energy crisis caused by a peak in global oil and natural gas production will profoundly affect the lives of all North Americans. As the price of these vital fuels rises, homeowners will scramble to cut their fuel bills. Two options for meeting the upcoming challenge are dramatic improvements in home energy efficiency and efforts to tap into clean, affordable, renewable energy resources to heat and cool homes, to provide hot water and electricity and even to cook. These measures can result in huge savings and a level of energy independence.

This 290-page book opens with basic facts about energy and an outline of likely impacts of fossil fuel shortages. It discusses how to conserve energy and cut heating bills, and how to prepare for renewable energy options. Focusing on strategies for replacing specific fuels, the book then examines each practical energy option available to homeowners.

The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy gives readers sufficient knowledge to hire and communicate effectively with contractors and, for those wanting do installations themselves, it recommends more detailed manuals. With a complete resource listing, this well-illustrated and accessible guide is a perfect companion for illuminating the coming dark age.

About the Author:

Dan Chiras is the father of two boys, and the author of over 20 books on environmental issues and sustainability. He teaches courses on renewable energy, green building and sustainability at Colorado College. His free time is spent mountain biking, camping, canoeing, kayaking, playing music and gardening with his boys.

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This MOTHER EARTH NEWS Book for Wiser Living reviews the history of solar water and space heating systems, then presents the basics of solar water heating, including an introduction to modern solar energy systems, energy conservation and energy economics.

Heating water with the sun is almost as old as humankind itself, and it is done all over the world. Yet there are strangely few resources on the topic in North America. Solar Water Heating fills this gap.

Drawing on the author's experience as an installer of these systems, the book goes on to cover: types of solar collectors, solar water and space heating systems and solar pool heating systems, including their advantages and disadvantages, system components, their installation, operation and maintenance, System sizing and siting and choosing the appropriate system.

Since people often get turned off by the up-front cost, the book focuses especially on the financial aspects of solar water or space heating systems, clearly showing that such systems can save significant costs in the long run. Well-illustrated, the book is designed for a wide readership from the curious to the student or professional.

About the Contributor:

Bob Ramlow is the solar thermal consultant for the Wisconsin Focus on Energy Program. The owner of a renewable energy company, he has over 30 years experience with solar energy systems and is a founder and director of the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA).

Benjamin Nusz currently works as a solar water heating consultant and site assessor in Wisconsin.

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This 432-page book shows homeowners that using less energy or adopting renewable energy technologies is not about making drastic lifestyle sacrifices, nor is it always expensive. Energy efficiency can improve your life by lowering operating costs, creating a more comfortable environment and increasing disposable income.

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Everybody wants two things for their home: that it be beautiful and affordable. Most people spend more money on where they live than any other physical object they will ever own. But compared to almost any other retail transaction, home buyers usually have the least control over what they get. The result? High stakes purchasing plus low expectations equals frustrating reality. But this reality is absent from almost all media portrayals, academic exercises, or the tradition of professional home design, where money is assumed to be readily available for great designs. This book helps you build a beautiful home on a budget.

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What if I could harness this energy? An unusual question yet human power is a very old, practical and empowering alternative to fossil fuels. The Human-Powered Home, a MOTHER EARTH NEWS Book for Wiser Living, is a one-of-a-kind guide to human-powered devices gathered from a unique collection of experts.

This book discusses the science and history of human power and examines the common elements of human-powered devices. For those who are beginning to understand the importance of a life of reduced dependency on fossil fuels, this book can be a catalyst for change.