The New Solar Home Book has been for hundreds of thousands of readers the work that ushered in a new consciousness about how our culture uses and lives with energy. Provides the moral, philosophical, economic, and environmental rationale for solar energy.

While heat from sunlight and ventilation from breezes is free for the taking, few modern architects or builders really understand the principles involved. Yet "natural conditioning"--Heating and cooling with passive solar techniques -- is a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Acknowledging the good intentions of misguided solar designers in the past, the author highlights certain egregious errors and shows how to avoid them. The author shows how to select a cost-effective, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly backup heating system; how to preserve indoor air quality in an airtight, energy-efficient home; and ways of employing green building materials in a naturally conditioned home.

A House in the Sun describes a number of experiments in solar house heating in the 1940s and 1950s. It shows how resource limitations were seen as an opportunity for design to attain new relevance for social and cultural transformations.

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.

"Learn just what you need to know about passive solar house design for western states"--Page 4 of cover

A complete array of solar water heating solutions.

New buildings can be designed to be solar oriented, naturally heated and cooled, naturally lit and ventilated, and made with renewable, sustainable materials—no matter the location or climate. In this comprehensive overview of passive solar design, two of America’s solar pioneers give homeowners, architects, designers, and builders the keys to successfully harnessing the sun and maximizing climate resources for heating, cooling, ventilation, and daylighting. Bainbridge and Haggard draw upon examples from their own experiences, as well as those of others, of more than three decades to offer both overarching principles as well as the details and formulas needed to successfully design a more comfortable, healthy, and secure place in which to live, laugh, dance, and be comfortable. Even if the power goes off. Passive Solar Architecture also discusses “greener” and more-sustainable building materials and how to use them, and explores the historical roots of green design that have made possible buildings that produce more energy and other resources than they use.