Passive solar heating and passive cooling—approaches known as natural conditioning—provide comfort throughout the year by reducing, or eliminating, the need for fossil fuel. Yet while heat from sunlight and ventilation from breezes is free for the taking, few modern architects or builders really understand the principles involved.

Now Dan Chiras, author of the popular book The Natural House, brings those principles up to date

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100 energy saving tips for everything in your home or business!

Did you know . . .

• Heating and cooling account for about 56% of the energy use in a typical home
• Energy-efficient light bulbs last about 12 times longer than ordinary bulbs, and consume about 1/5 of the energy
• If we all turned off our TVs and other gadgets that are kept on stand-by, we could shut down a couple of power stations in the United States, with huge

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"The Home Energy Diet helps readers take control of their personal energy use and costs so they can save money, live more comfortably, and help reduce environmental impacts. Energy specialist Paul Scheckel first explores energy literacy, and then describes how your home uses - and loses - energy you pay for. He encourages readers to learn about their own homes through easy-to-follow ways of measuring, metering, investigating, and considering habits...

How efficient are front-load washing machines? When is it time to replace your old refrigerator? These questions and many more are answered in The Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings, a one-stop resource for consumers who want to improve their home's energy performance and reduce costs. Zeroing in on the most useful response can be a challenge; this ninth edition cuts through the confusion.

"Prefab home construction has arrived. The benefits of [building] a prefab home (they are better built, use resources more efficiently, and are healthier to live in) apply just as well to vacation homes as they do to primary residences. [This book] explores the beauty, variety, design, and environmentally positive benefits of prefab construction through the wide variety of prefabrication methods in use today and with prefabulous examples from across...

Are you looking for creative ways to lower your energy costs, generate more of your own power, or become less reliant on the grid? Paul Scheckel offers practical advice for taking matters into your own hands. Explaining the fundamentals of solar, wind, water, and biofuel energy production, Scheckel shows you how to build and maintain a wide variety of energy-saving and energy-producing equipment, ranging from thermosiphon solar hot water collectors...

The U.S Department of Energy reports that 20% of our electric bills come from items that are left plugged in when they are not in use, or items that are in standby mode. With the Kill A Watt P4400 we can monitor the energy eaters in our homes and cut down our electric bills at the same time. Plug whatever item you want into the device and it will tell you the efficiency of that item by displaying the kilowatt per hour. This device will help you determine...