Passive Solar Energy: The Homeowner's Guide to Natural Heating and Cooling

From the Preface: "...Heating and cooling with the sun doesn't have to be complicated and expensive. This book is for all of us who have burned our behinds on the sun-baked seats of our cars, who are concerned by the environmental damage being done by fossil fuels, and who are ready to do something about it all - just as soon and as simply as possible. Passive solar heating and cooling does not depend on pumps or fans or any other devices. Instead, it relies on the natural ebb and flow of the energy of the sun through a house. With a few facts from this book and a little common sense, you can, by combining passive solar design with energy conservation, reduce by as much as 85% the heating and cooling bills for a new house from that for a conventional house. And many of the ideas can be adapted to existing houses as well...."

It is easy to think of harvesting solar energy as a highly technical system involving wiring and plumbing and high-tech gadgets and gizmos you'd need an engineer to design and set up (and operate!). But really, every time you walk outside on a sunny day and every time you realize that the rooms on the south side of your home tend to get warmer during the day, you are witnessing solar energy at work. The beauty of passive solar energy is, for me, its "low-tech" approach, as the words imply. A bit of design foresight when building or remodeling your home will yield a wide set of possibilities for using solar energy to warm and cool your home. This is the book that can show you how. It is well illustrated and written for folks who may not have a technical degree. Not being a techno-wizard of any kind, I can understand this book, and I'll bet you can too!