Books on Building an Energy-Efficient House
The solar house : passive heating and cooling
Chiras, Daniel D. 697.78
I considered this better than the Kachadorian book, which was stuck on one design involving a lot of concrete. It talked a lot about mistakes to avoid, mistakes made in the wave of solar homebuilding in the seventies.
More Straw Bale Building
Mack, Peter 693.997 oversized (balcony)
This was definitely a booster’s book, written by someone who now has a strawbale house construction consulting company. But I found it convincing and it has loads of clear detail for anyone who wants to build with straw. Lots of photos, too.
Building Green: A complete how-to guide to alternative building methods
Snell, Clarke and Tim Callahan 690.837 oversized
This big book is full of detail and lots of pictures. It also has a combination I find very appealing in the authors; the main author is a passionate environmentalist who writes enthusiastically about various alternative construction methods, while the coauthor is a seasoned professional builder who takes a more cynical and practical view. Together they built a guest cabin which they used to illustrate the various methods—each wall is different and they used straw bale and cob and cordwood and put a “living roof” (dirt and plants) on top.
The Good House Book
Snell, Clarke 690.837 oversized
Snell actually wrote this one first. It expresses a lot of the same philosophy as his other book: that the key to ending up with a good home is to consider the realities of the site and your own needs and skills, and take the time to research all kinds of things before finalizing your house plans—and not get hung up on whatever fad is currently “cool”—e.g. building with straw bales whether it fits your location and situation or not. This book has less detail than the above, but looks at more variations, including 6 different houses plus Snell’s own housebuilding saga.
Passive Solar Energy (new for the 1990s!)
Anderson, Bruce and Malcomb Wells 697.78
This book had clear illustrations and descriptions, with simple language and large print—but it didn’t help me navigate the confusing question of whether a solar room/greenhouse makes sense here and how best to design it. It has a lot of charts and pretty good information on summer cooling.
The Easy Guide to Solar Electric
Pieper, Adj 690.837
Well, it wasn’t easy for ME. But perhaps no book on something so technical could be.
The Solar Electric House
Strong, Steven 697.78
Same as above
Healthy House Building for the New Millennium
Bower, John 693.8 oversize
This one focuses on construction materials and methods that will result in a house that will be tolerated well even by a person who is very sensitive to chemicals, etc. I wanted to find out especially which kinds of insulation and composite materials are suspect. It did answer that question, said carpets are terrible (I agree) and that we need to avoid gas and wood stoves (I disagree) and paints and varnishes (won’t need) and use loads of insulation and make the house super airtight—then use mechanical ventilation (I see that as a waste of power).
Energy-Efficient Building
Best of Fine Housebuilding 644 Roane library
This is a collection of articles focusing on various details of energy-efficient building. There are three articles on windows, one of them quite comprehensive; articles on moisture control and insulation, and avoiding ice dams; and a couple that show all the details for particular houses in different climates that were constrained economically but designed to use little or no backup heat. The final one, probably NOT constrained by money, was written by the architect/owner, and has great photos of a lovely house.
The Independent Home: living well with power from the sun, wind and water 695 oversized
Potts, Michael
This one focuses on home energy systems, interviewing “pioneers’ primarily in northern California, Vermont and Colorado, who built homes powered with PV or wind or microhydro systems. The author contrasts these pioneers with “settlers” like himself—those who come after and use the discoveries of the pioneers but don’t want to take the risk and invest the energy and time in discovering what works and what doesn’t. It also includes basic instruction in how PV and batteries work, etc, but as it was written in ’93 it omits the newest information. Often good for the philosophical ramblings.
Landscaping that Saves Energy and Dollars
Foster, Ruth S 712.2 Roane library
Pretty comprehensive book on landscaping issues related to increasing or reducing wind and sun and moisture; includes many plant lists.
Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture
Morrow, Rosemary 631.58 oversized
This book covers a broader subject—house construction is not covered in any detail but the book goes into great detail about the ecologically aware way to situate your house, as well as plantings, ponds, wastewater systems, ponds, animals, orchard, and forests, whether you have a suburban lot or a farm. The author is Australian so there is somewhat more focus on preserving water and accommodating wild kangaroos than we generally deal with, and different plants—but she is careful to avoid talking about the need to orient your windows to the north for maximum winter sun, using the word “sunward.”
Food Not Lawns
H C Flores 631.58 oversized
This book covers roughly the same territory, written by an Oregon activist. It has somewhat more of an urban and garden-oriented focus, although it gets into a lot of community stuff in later chapters. Like the last book, it’s comprehensive, informative and inspiring and I would recommend that the Roane county library buy one of the two.
Permaculture Two
Mollison, Bill belongs to Robin Wilson
This book came out in 1979—I believe Mollison is considered the founder of the permaculture movement. It covers much the same ground as the previous two, but is a smaller book, more centered on Australia, and thus clearly less useful than either of those.
Healing Appalachia
Fritsch, Al and Paul Gallimore
This book, which comes from ASPI in KY and another outfit in Tennessee, has chapters covering thirty “appropriate” technologies for our region—specifically central Appalachia. This saves some space as they don’t need to consider very cold or arid or tropical climates, but it still covers much the same ground as other books on appropriate technology and green living. The chapters don’t include useful technical details and sketches to the degree that books with more limited scope do; it’s more of an overview of possible technologies. I quibbled with the author’s unqualified support for cordwood building and rejection of straw bale building, but other than that it seemed well thought out.
The Real Goods Independent Builder
Clark, Sam 690.837 oversized
This one hasn’t much focus on alternative or energy-efficient building, but it has a lot of detail about how to build each part of a house (excluding electric and plumbing systems). Some parts are quite helpful, although he often limits discussion, for example the only roof styles he considers are shed and gable roofs. The step-by-step approach is the best part of this book.
Living Homes
Elpel, Thomas 690.837 oversized
There wasn’t a great deal I found useful in this one, largely because this guy is talking from his own experience, building in cold, arid, sunny Montana. He mostly built out of stone.
The Visual Handbook of Building and Remodeling
Wing, Charles 690.8
This book is different in that it does not focus on any sort of “alternative’ construction, and that it tries to be very comprehensive, mainly in terms of charts it doesn’t have long involved narratives about any aspect of building but tries to have all the statistics and formulas and charts you might need to do the deed. Some is helpful, though it would probably be more useful if you owned it and could reference it when you needed to look something up.