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Mother Earth News: Guide To Home Energy Savings

You’ll save money on home energy bills for years to come with this convenient collection of recent articles from Mother Earth News! The Guide to Home Energy Savings filled with information on solar heating options, plus natural ways to cool your house. If you want to heat your home for free, you can find instructions for building a DIY solar heating system. And if you’re planning to remodel or build a new home, the Guide includes articles to help you make your home super-energy efficient by tapping the free energy of the sun.

Considering new, energy-efficient appliances or windows? Maybe even heating with a woodstove? Learn what you need to know to spend your money wisely. Including a 3-page directory of more resources related to solar energy and energy efficiency.

This is the downloadable e-book version of the Mother Earth News: Guide to Home Energy Savings Bookazine. To order a print copy by mail, click here.

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This book by Mother Earth News contributing editor Dan Chiras will enable you to make wise decisions during the design, purchase and installation of home-based wind energy systems. Written in consultation with two of the most experienced "small wind" experts in the United States, this is the book you need if you are interested in a wind turbine for your home.

Faced with frequent power outages, skyrocketing energy costs, and constant reminders of the impacts of conventional energy sources, homeowners and businesses are beginning to explore ways to use energy more efficiently and to generate their own electricity to reduce fuel bills and their carbon footprint and to achieve greater independence.

Power From the Wind is an easily understandable guide for individuals and businesses interested in installing small wind energy system. Written for the layperson, this practical guide provides an accurate and unbiased view of all aspects of small wind energy systems, including:

• Wind and wind energy systems
• Ways to assess wind resources at your site
• Wind turbines and towers
• Inverters and batteries
• Installation and maintenance of systems
• The costs and benefits of installing a wind system

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Are you looking for simple ideas to save money? The Mother Earth News Guide to Living on Less has dozens of ideas to help you save money on food, housing and energy, while also living a greener life.

These strategies for living lightly are simple, satisfying and even fun. Here are a few of the articles you’ll find in this special collection:

• For big energy savings that can also help you save money check out our “8 Easy Projects for Instant Energy Savings.”
• Ready to start a garden, or make your existing garden bigger?
• Read “Easy Garden Anyone Can Make” for an easy plan that will have you growing more vegetables in no time.

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The Earth-Sheltered House is a classic in the annals of sustainable building books, written by a legend in the field of sustainable architecture. Malcolm Wells had a fundamentally different way of looking at the design and building process, and his iconoclastic perspective has never been more apparent.

Wells’ work is revolutionary, but readers will find his message to be pure common sense. Earth sheltering offers superior comfort with minimal energy input, and it is adaptable to diverse terrains as well as a variety of architectural aesthetics.

This architect's sketchbook will show you how you can build underground homes of different styles. Complete with floor plans, elevation drawings and detailed diagrams, this book is a necessary resource for anyone who is considering building green.

An architect by trade, Wells lived in The Underground Art Gallery, in Brewster, Massachusetts, and wrote several books about this subject, which he began promoting in 1964. He was a pioneer of underground building and natural design. His best-selling books include Gentle Architecture and How to Build an Underground House. The Earth-Sheltered House is scanned from his own handwritten and illustrated pages.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $29.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Learn to make smart energy improvement decisions when you perform an energy audit with this Basic Energy Audit Kit.

Geared toward the home, condo, town home or apartment dweller, this energy-use diagnostic tool will guide you through a detailed inspection of your structure and its potential energy problems. All the forms, instructional materials and tools you need are included along with a clipboard to give you a writing surface as you complete the forms and a carpenter's apron to keep the tools handy. Educational presentations are available on the accompanying CD to shorten your learning curve. Sample images help you determine your specific building's construction and components.

As a bonus, the Basic Energy Audit Kit includes REScheck as well as easy-to-follow instructions on how to determine if your structure is compliant with energy codes and how much better or worse it is than code.

Once you have completed your audit, you will have a good amount of knowledge of where energy problems occur, not only in your home specifically, but in residences generally. And, with the included program, you will be able to compare scenarios for cost-effective changes you can make to reduce your energy consumption.

The Basic Energy Audit Kit is worth more than its price tag because you learn how you can save that amount many times over. Use it and learn to:

• see your house from an energy rater's point of view.
• proceed through an energy audit safely and efficiently.
• find the common places where your energy dollars could be escaping.
• diagnose your energy use (or misuse).
• detect where your energy dollars are being least effective.
• pinpoint overlooked energy problems.
• transfer your findings into scenarios for problem-solving.
• manipulate those scenarios to discover cost-effective solutions.
• make home improvement decisions based on cost-to-results ratio.
• decide where best to spend your money to save your money.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $49.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

The Green Building Decision Kit — containing prioritizing software and more than 300 pages of information — educates and aids you with the decision-making process of "green" construction: residential or small commercial, new or remodeling. Plus it helps you conduct your own Design Charrette.

The Green Building Decision Kit is the only product you need to get started building green. It takes you step-by-step through each part of the construction process and is organized in the general order of the process. It educates and informs you about green considerations, materials, alternatives and even programs to help you make critical decisions and ensure your priorities are incorporated throughout your project.

The Green Building Decision Kit is designed for ease of use. The presentation of information is broken down into common-sense sections and easy to understand language. Rather than make you search through a massive book or database to find information, the kit incorporates a unique, patent-pending matching tab system that allows for easy retrieval of pertinent details. The Display and Companion Pages are provided digitally in a fully searchable Acrobat Reader format so the user has the option to minimize (or eliminate) what is printed on paper.

The Green Building Decision Kit facilitates the use of a design charrette. The modern definition of a charrette refers to any collaborative session in which the group drafts a solution to a designated problem. It provides a forum for ideas and offers the unique opportunity for upfront planning, feedback and decision-making while integrating the aptitude and interests of a diverse group of people.

The Green Building Decision Kit includes information about traditional construction in addition to various green alternatives. In this way, you have what you need to make comparisons and, therefore, informed decisions.

Additionally, the Green Decision Matrix software included with the kit provides a comparison of options in each area of discussion based upon the user's input. The Matrix software begins with input regarding your priorities (such as costs, living style, embodied energy, environmental impacts) and uses these priorities during the "weighting" process to provide a most favorable-to-least favorable list for each component.

The Green Building Decision Kit Workbook is a helpful tool for keeping track of your priorities. Instruction pages, Display pages, Matrix software and extras are provided on the accompanying CD.

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This revised and expanded fifth edition of Create an Oasis With Greywater describes how to quickly and easily choose, build and use a simple greywater system. Some can be completed in an afternoon for under $30.

It also provides complete instructions for more complex installations, and how to deal with freezing, flooding, drought, failing septics, low perk soil and nonindustrialized world conditions. This book helps in coordinating a team of professionals to get optimum results on high-end projects and "radical plumbing" that uses 90% less resources.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: 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 and products to readers. For more than 40 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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Mother Nature has shown her hand. Faced with climate change, dwindling resources and species extinctions, most Americans understand the fundamental steps necessary to solve our global crises — drive less, consume less, increase self-reliance, buy locally, eat locally, rebuild our local communities.

In essence, the great work we face requires rekindling the home fires.

Radical Homemakers is about men and women across the United States who focus on home and hearth as a political and ecological act, and who have centered their lives on family and community for personal fulfillment and cultural change. It explores what domesticity looks like in an era that has benefited from feminism, where domination and oppression are cast aside and where the choice to stay home is no longer equated with mind-numbing drudgery, economic insecurity or relentless servitude.

Radical homemakers nationwide speak about empowerment, transformation, happiness, and casting aside the pressures of a consumer culture to live in a world where money loses its power to relationships, independent thought and creativity. If you ever considered quitting a job to plant tomatoes, read to a child, pursue creative work, can green beans and heal the planet, this is your book.

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Architect David Wright helped pioneer the concept of passive solar architecture, and his thoughts and experiments have helped shape the evolution of solar design throughout the world. His years of exploration are distilled in this comprehensive book, which provides simple graphics and language to illuminate concepts including greenhouse effect, heat storage, surface-to-volume ratio, ventilation and cooling.

Tips, rules-of-thumb, regional characteristics and many other considerations are presented to help readers, from initial site selection to visionary design. Written for architects, designers and others who seek to tap the free resources offered by earth and sun, this invaluable tool will help reduce dependence on outside energy sources. You will be inspired.

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Compact Cabins presents 62 design interpretations of the getaway dream. Whether it be a small cabin on a sparkling lakefront, a breath-taking mountaintop, an expansive beach, or some other peaceful location, there is something here to please every taste. Best of all, these small-footprint designs are affordable and energy-efficient without skimping on comfort and style. The cabins range in size form a cozy 150 square feet to a more spacious but still economical 1,000 square feet, and all include sleeping accommodations, kitchen and bath facilities, and a heat source. Complete chapters on low-maintenance building materials, utilities and appliances, and alternative energy sources supply you with the options for living efficiently in small space.

For every design, you will find floor plans with detailed suggestions for designing the space for optimal use. These plans are flexible: many feature modular elements that can be mixed and matched to accommodate your particular needs or hobbies. Features such as an outdoor fireplace, covered porch, or external storage locker might work nicely in several cabin designs. It's all about enhancing and maximizing small spaces to your individual needs and preferences.

• Need plenty of sleeping space for visiting friends and family? Jean's Run Cabin sleeps six in 501 square feet.
• Do you own a shallow plot on a beautiful lake? Glass House Cabin offers terrific views, a large deck, and a wide-frontage floor plan.
• Is your priority a romantic getaway? A Cabin for Two features a fireplace, a spa tub, and a cozy sleeping nook.
• Love hosting parties? Clerestory Cabin with Dining Room has a dedicated dining space right next to the porch, which is perfect for cocktails or coffee.