The Passive Solar House: The Complete Guide to Heating and Cooling Your Home

This is an excellent introduction to passive solar concepts and is a good book for helping you to plan and design a passive solar house. It is written by a civil engineer, who also ran a company designing and manufacturing passive solar kit homes for about 20 years. A big bonus to this book is that it comes with a CD for an open-source solar analysis and design software, that also includes a photographic tour of passive solar homes. Use this CD to analyze your existing home design to consider remodeling and energy upgrade options, or your new design. Very helpful for rapidly comparing various “what-if” scenarios while fine tuning the design for your solar dream home. Kachadorian’s patented innovative solar slab heat storage system has formed the core of numerous comfortable, functional, and modestly priced solar homes. Now that his patent has run out, you can incorporate it into your home, taking advantage of more than twenty years of building experience with this unique solar slab design. The book’s title is a bit misleading, since there is very little focus on passively cooling homes in hot climates. Newly revised and updated edition.