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Before you build your home, read this definitive guide to designing with the sun in mind by MOTHER EARTH NEWS contributing editor Dan Chiras. Learn how you can cut your energy bills in half by choosing the best passive solar heating and cooling techniques.

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 Chiras, author of the popular book The Natural House, brings those principles up to date for a new generation of solar enthusiasts.

The techniques required to heat and cool a building passively have been used for thousands of years. Early societies such as the Native American Anasazis and the ancient Greeks perfected designs that effectively exploited these natural processes. The Greeks considered anyone who didn't use passive solar to heat a home to be a barbarian!

In the United States, passive solar architecture experienced a major resurgence of interest in the 1970s in response to crippling oil embargoes. With grand enthusiasm but with scant knowledge (and sometimes little common sense), architects and builders created a wide variety of solar homes. Some worked pretty well, but looked more like laboratories than houses. Others performed poorly, overheating in the summer because of excessive or misplaced windows and skylights, and growing chilly in the colder months because of insufficient thermal mass and insulation and poor siting.

In The Solar House, Chiras sets the record straight on the vast potential for passive heating and cooling. Acknowledging the good intentions of misguided solar designers in the past, he highlights certain egregious — and entirely avoidable — errors. More importantly, Chiras explains in methodical detail how today's home builders can succeed with solar designs.

Now that energy efficiency measures including higher levels of insulation and multi-layered glazing have become standard, it is easier than ever before to create a comfortable and affordable passive solar house that will provide year-round comfort in any climate.

Moreover, since modern building materials and airtight construction methods sometimes result in air-quality and even toxicity problems, Chiras explains state-of-the-art ventilation and filtering techniques that complement the ancient solar strategies of thermal mass and daylighting. Chiras also explains the new diagnostic aids available in printed worksheet or software formats, allowing readers to generate their own design schemes.

About the Author
Daniel D. Chiras is the author of The Natural House. He holds a Ph.D. in physiology and teaches courses on sustainability and environmental health at the universities of Colorado and Denver. He is the author of five college and high school text books as well as other books on global environmental issues. Chiras is also an avid musician, organic gardener, river runner and bicyclist. He lives with his family in a passive solar/solar electric, straw bale and rammed tire house in Evergreen, Colorado.

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This MOTHER EARTH NEWS Book for Wiser Living, helps you understand the sometimes confusing array of renewable energy technologies and techniques, plus shows how you can slash energy bills.

The coming energy crisis caused by a peak in global oil and natural gas production will profoundly affect the lives of all North Americans. As the price of these vital fuels rises, homeowners will scramble to cut their fuel bills. Two options for meeting the upcoming challenge are dramatic improvements in home energy efficiency and efforts to tap into clean, affordable, renewable energy resources to heat and cool homes, to provide hot water and electricity and even to cook. These measures can result in huge savings and a level of energy independence.

This 290-page book opens with basic facts about energy and an outline of likely impacts of fossil fuel shortages. It discusses how to conserve energy and cut heating bills, and how to prepare for renewable energy options. Focusing on strategies for replacing specific fuels, the book then examines each practical energy option available to homeowners.

The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy gives readers sufficient knowledge to hire and communicate effectively with contractors and, for those wanting do installations themselves, it recommends more detailed manuals. With a complete resource listing, this well-illustrated and accessible guide is a perfect companion for illuminating the coming dark age.

About the Author:

Dan Chiras is the father of two boys, and the author of over 20 books on environmental issues and sustainability. He teaches courses on renewable energy, green building and sustainability at Colorado College. His free time is spent mountain biking, camping, canoeing, kayaking, playing music and gardening with his boys.

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This new book by MOTHER EARTH NEWS contributing editor Dan Chiras will enable you to make wise decisions during the design, purchase and installation of home-based wind energy systems. Written in consultation with two of the most experienced "small wind" experts in the United States, this is the book you need if you are interested in a wind turbine for your home.
Faced with frequent power outages, skyrocketing energy costs, and constant reminders of the impacts of conventional energy sources, homeowners and businesses are beginning to explore ways to use energy more efficiently and to generate their own electricity to reduce fuel bills and their carbon footprint and to achieve greater independence.

Power From the Wind is an easily understandable guide for individuals and businesses interested in installing small wind energy system. Written for the layperson, this practical guide provides an accurate and unbiased view of all aspects of small wind energy systems, including:

• Wind and wind energy systems
• Ways to assess wind resources at your site
• Wind turbines and towers
• Inverters and batteries
• Installation and maintenance of systems
• The costs and benefits of installing a wind system

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It's time we moved from commuting to community and Superbia!, a MOTHER EARTH NEWS Book for Wiser Living, tells you how. An inspiring book about connecting with our neighbors, connecting our communities to the ecosystem, and connecting our everyday lives to our search for quality and joy.

The book is full of practical ideas for creating more socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable neighborhoods. It is about remaking suburban and urban neighborhoods to serve people better and to reduce human impact on the environment.

The authors first trace the history of the suburbs, showing how they fail to meet many peoples' needs. They then describe how existing neighborhoods can be transformed, offering cohousing and new urbanist communities as examples. The reader is then guided through the transformation of a fictitious neighborhood that adopts the authors' 31 steps. Ideas for the blossoming of the suburb are described in order of difficulty, from easy to boldest, including: the creation of a neighborhood newsletter to foster a sense of neighborhood identity and cooperation; regular community dinners, discussion groups, and babysitting co-ops; the removal of backyard fences to create park-like spaces for community play areas, or gardens; retrofitting homes for energy efficiency, and installing community energy systems.

Examples from all over North America and beyond provide real-life proof that citizen planners can create superbia! And the most comprehensive resource listing imaginable puts all the tools needed at your fingertips.

Well-illustrated and reader-friendly, Superbia! is written primarily for the millions who live in urban areas or existing suburbs. It will also be of major interest to environmentalists, planners, and all who want to create a more humane and nurturing lifestyle.

About the Contributors:

Dan Chiras is the father of two boys, and the author of over 20 books on environmental issues and sustainability. He teaches courses on renewable energy, green building and sustainability at Colorado College. His free time is spent mountain biking, camping, canoeing, kayaking, playing music, and gardening with his boys.

Dave Wann worked with the EPA for a decade and is now a writer and video producer. Widely published in magazines, he is coauthor of the successful book, Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic and two other books about design, as well as six video programs on community.

Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to its readers. For more than 30 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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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. Gives readers an edge when they sell their homes buyers are especially looking for energy-efficiency, but they're 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 to 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 & paint options
• Environmentally friendly cabinetry & countertops
• Whole-house insulation & weather-stripping
• High-efficiency heating & cooling
• Water conservation
• Efficient lighting, appliances & plumbing fixtures including Energy Star and WaterSense models
• Solar electric and water heating systems
• Eco-friendly roofing & siding
• Energy-efficient windows, doors & skylights
• Green materials for patios, walkways & driveways
• Landscaping & irrigation for water conservation and energy