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If you live near a river or stream, Microhydro, a Mother Earth News Book for Wiser Living, explains everything you need to know to produce electricity for your home. This book outlines the basic requirements and approximate costs of home-scale hydroelectric systems that let you create clean, off-grid independent power.

Hydroelectricity is the world's largest — and cleanest — source of renewable energy. But despite lively interest in renewables generally, there is an information vacuum about the smallest version of the technology dubbed "the simplest, most reliable and least expensive way to generate power off grid."

Highly illustrated and practical, Microhydro is the first complete book on the topic in a decade. Covering both AC and DC systems, it covers principles, design and site considerations, equipment options, and legal, environmental and economic factors.

About the author

Scott Davis has decades of experience operating, installing, designing, selling and teaching about microhydro technology. An award-winner in the field, he currently works as a system designer and retailer with an alternative energy company for whom he has authored an online microhydro course.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $18.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

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. Energy auditor Paul Scheckel first explores energy literacy, and then describes how your home uses and looses energy you pay for through electricity, hot water, heating and air conditioning, 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 revised edition of The Renewable Energy Handbook focuses on the unique requirements of off-grid living as well as using "green" energy for homeowners who remain connected to the electrical utility. The book contains chapters on:

• Energy efficiency and economics
• Home heating and cooling, and domestic water heating
• Photovoltaic, wind and micro-hydro energy generation
• Battery selection and inverters
• Backup power, wireless communications and more.

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In a tight economy, this book offers clear financial benefits by helping homeowners immediately cut their utility bills. Many of these smaller home improvements require only a modest investment, and give readers an edge when they sell their homes: Buyers are looking for energy efficiency, and they are also tuned into green health and environmental concerns.

The book's projects include quick and easy, low- or no-cost tasks — like insulating a water heater, sealing foundation cracks or painting with insulating paint — as well as bigger-ticket items, such as installing a new energy-efficient heating system, windows or green flooring. The more than 65 "Go Green" tips highlighted throughout the book give readers ideas to make their homes and lifestyles greener.

Projects include:

• Green flooring and paint options
• Environmentally friendly cabinetry and countertops
• Whole-house insulation and weather-stripping
• High-efficiency heating and cooling
• Water conservation
• Efficient lighting, appliances and plumbing fixtures, including Energy Star and WaterSense models
• Solar electric and water heating systems
• Eco-friendly roofing and siding
• Energy-efficient windows, doors and skylights
• Green materials for patios, walkways and driveways
• Landscaping and irrigation for water conservation and energy

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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 $37.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Some 40 percent of North Americans live in homes built before 1940, and when it comes time to remodel or restore our older homes, homeowners and contractors can find themselves lost in a morass of wildly divergent information and opinion. With Green Restorations, author Aaron Lubeck brings his expertise as a restoration contractor and preservation consultant to this first-of-its-kind guide, leading the reader through the steps for restoring historic building using sustainable practices and green building techniques.

In a readily accessible room-by-room and system-by-system format, Green Restorations covers rehabilitation and remodelling questions applicable to old homes, focusing on the core techniques and debates often seen in practice. Here you'll find the answers to restoration questions, such as:

• Is sealing my old crawl space a good idea?
• Should I replace or rehabilitate my windows?
• Are there historic aspects of my home I need to preserve, and what can I change?
• What are the cultural, environmental and financial implications of my proposed changes?
• Do residential historic tax credits apply to my home and how can I access them?

Written in such a way as to be accessible for homeowners but technical enough for contractors, this book will appeal to anyone trying to green an older home while preserving its historic and cultural significance.

About the Author

Aaron Lubeck is a partner with Trinity Design/Build, a restoration and preservation consultancy in North Carolina that has won numerous preservation awards. He is a member of the United States Green Building Council who has completed the first historic building to be LEED-certified in North Carolina.

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In the Age of Scarcity now upon us, fresh water shortages are an increasingly serious global problem. With water restrictions emerging in many developed countries and water diversions for industrial, urban and environmental reasons stirring up oceans of controversy, there is a growing thirst for innovative approaches to reducing our water footprint.
Dry Run shows the best ways to manage scarce water resources and handle upcoming urban water crises. Featuring original interviews with more than 25 water researchers and industry experts, this book explains water issues and proposes solutions for homes, buildings, facilities and schools. Examining the vital linkages between water, energy use, urban development and climate change, Dry Run demonstrates best practices for achieving "net zero" water use in the built environment including:

• water conservation strategies for buildings, factories, cities and homes
• rainwater harvesting
• graywater reuse and water reclamation systems
• water efficiency retrofits
• onsite sewage treatment
• new water reuse and supply technologies.

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Green Transportation Basics is a guide to greening your personal driving habits by dramatically improving the efficiency of an existing vehicle using simple measures such as trip planning and regular maintenance to improve fuel economy. This handy guide also explores the most promising new green cars and trucks, including electric vehicles, hybrids, plug-in hybrids and natural-gas cars. And it critically examines sustainable fuels including ethanol, biodiesel, straight vegetable oil, hydrogen and biomethane, evaluating each according to a set of established criteria. Each green fuel source must:

• be socially, economically and environmentally sustainable
• have a high net energy yield
• be clean, abundant, renewable and affordable.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $24.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Water has been described as the 21st century oil. Water shortages, water quality and water rights are hot-button issues at the local, national and international levels. Climate change, population growth and contamination from industry, farms and human settlements have dramatically impacted water supplies and disrupted natural nutrient cycles. Strategic wastewater management will be a critical tool in protecting this valuable but threatened resource.

Reusing the Resource is a comprehensive guide to using plants to stabilize, clean, filter and reuse wastewater, while simultaneously eliminating expensive and polluting sewers and septic systems. The book profiles more than 30 successful ecological wastewater recycling systems that save money, protect public and environmental health, and provide plant-based fuel, fiber, construction materials, habitat and landscapes. It details the pros and cons of various systems, and provides tips for designers, regulators and builders. Case studies include:

• a greenhouse-enclosed wastewater aquaculture system
• a regional wastewater-recycling plant
• a city's wastewater-treatment wetland
• graywater planters.