PublishedCsiro Publishing, May 2017 |
ISBN9781486303762 |
FormatSoftcover, 272 pages |
Dimensions26cm × 20cm |
A
guide to how positive energy living can be achieved, through homes that power
themselves and empower their occupants
Positive energy homes enable people to live healthy and comfortable lives with energy left over to share. Creating a house you love that produces surplus energy is surprisingly easy with a thorough understanding of how buildings work and careful attention to detail in construction.
The Passive House standard, with its well-proven track record, forms the basis for creating positive energy homes. This book explores the Passive House 'fabric first' approach, as well as the science and practicalities of effective ventilation strategies, smart options for heating and cooling, daylight harvesting, and efficient lighting and appliances.
Positive Energy Homes provides home owners world-wide, architects and builders with an understanding of the principles and technical details of building these houses.
Bill is one of the founders of Boffins and has been involved in selecting the books we stock since our beginning in 1989. His favourite reading is history, with psychology, current affairs, and business books coming close behind. His hobbies are reading, food, reading, drinking, reading, and sleeping.
*As reviewed on Radio 6PR 882 19th May 2017*
The authors, Robin Brimblecombe and Kara Rosemeier, are building scientists with lots of experience overseeing the design and delivery of energy efficiency retrofits and super-efficient solar-powered building. There is some useful material on retrofitting existing houses, but the focus of this book is on the design of new Positive Energy Homes – which are just Passive Houses set up to generate a surplus of renewable energy.
They first explain how to create the thermal envelope, the membrane that creates the cocoon of the passive house, that restricts heat loss. They explain design principles, insulation, and window choices that make this all work.
Fresh air delivery into the home is covered in detail – filters, heat exchangers, ducting, fan systems and more.
Hot water – heat pumps and solar, heating and cooling the house, light – maximising natural light, and extensive covering of electrical lighting, considerations when choosing all sorts of household appliances, energy generation and storage – solar photovoltaic systems, solar panels, designing a system for your house, system sizing, inverters, wind energy and storage batteries.
The presentation – diagrams, illustrations, charts – helps make all the technical information digestible and our customers have been asking for years for a book that covers all these things in a way that the layperson can understand them. I don’t think I’d build a house again without reading this book.
