"Save $, your health & the planet" This book just what you need to know to design a passive solar house, without extraneous and confusing information. You will learn how to save over 80% of your heating and cooling bills, improve your health, and tread more lightly on the planet. This Second Addition has a Cheat Sheet to make it even easier for you to design a truly green house. Most know that passive solar can be used to heat a home, but it can do more. Passive solar can also be used to cool, light and ventilate homes. Passive solar homes will save you money and ensure your family's comfort. It can do all this without burning fossil fuels or causing nuclear waste. This book is just what you need to know about designing very energy efficient houses for Colorado and the central Rocky Mountain states, presented clearly and concisely. You will discover: - What passive solar design is and how it will save them money. - How passive solar will ensure their comfort and health. - The three key passive solar systems and when to use them. - The most effective and easy to use green building strategies. - How to apply these systems and strategies, simply and effectively. Passive Solar Simplified covers the three key types of passive solar systems: direct gain, thermal storage walls, and sunspaces. It also covers the passive solar design strategies: proper building orientation, solar shading, thermal mass, glass, daylighting, room arrangement, and ventilation. All this, plus the other important green building strategies, including insulation, air-sealing, and photovoltaics (PV). These techniques work for both new houses and remodels. Passive solar design is simply not that complicated. You do not need a degree in physics to understand and apply this knowledge successfully. This little book was written for both laypersons and architects. It is not a complicated treatise on exotic theories of passive solar with byzantine formulas. Instead, this book is a straightforward and concise, yet complete guide to the tried and true passive solar methods that will save you energy with a truly green home. This is Passive Solar Simplified's Second Edition. It now has a Cheat Sheet to make it even easier for you to design a very energy efficient house.
Internationally-experienced, award-winning architect and educator, Thomas Doerr, specializes in sustainable design, including passive solar, net-zero energy, and off-grid homes. Thomas has designed successful projects as large as hotels and as small as light fixtures. His designs have been published in magazines, received professional awards, and exhibited in galleries. Thomas is a Green Points certified architect and past chair of the Colorado chapter of the AIA (American Institute of Architects) Committee on the Environment where he authored the Green Architecture Checklist for residences and edited the commercial checklist. He helped edit the Rocky Mountain edition of The Sustainable Design Resource Guide. Thomas is a licensed Energy Efficiency Inspector contractor. He is a professional advisor for the US Green Building Council (USGBC) Green Home Guide and on the Steering Committee of CRES (Colorado Renewable Energy Society) of Boulder County. A home Thomas designed achieved an amazing HERS (Home Energy Rating System) score of negative 3, one of a few houses to ever do this. After working at firms in Austin, Boston, San Francisco, Germany, and Denver, Thomas founded his own firm, Doerr Architecture, to offer high-quality, ecological, and personal service. Thomas earned a professional degree in architecture from The University of Texas at Austin, studied with Temple University in Rome, Italy, and then earned a master of architecture degree from The University of California at Berkeley. He has taught architecture at The University of Colorado, green building at Naropa University, and is a regular speaker at green building conferences. Thomas lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wonderful family. His friends speculate on which will kill him first, his mountain biking or his dancing. Learn more at www.BuildSustainably.com
