Making Your Home Sustainable

Author: Derek F. Wrigley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780734309419
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
Sustainable ideas, using natural energies, to improve existing houses in a cool-temperate climate. In 1991, architect and solar consultant Derek Wrigley moved into a townhouse in Canberra and faced a new design challenge - how to retrofit an existing suburban house to use renewable energies rather than fossil fuels. Convinced that building design could do more to achieve sustainability, he developed a series of innovative devices to improve the energy efficiency of the house, and modified the existing design to work harmoniously with the local climate. The house now generates about 15 per cent more electricity than it consumes, and the photovoltaic system should have a pay-back period of just under nine years. The house ventilates and cools itself without any electrical assistance or air conditioning, and greywater nourishes the garden. Derek has been advised that for every dollar spend on retrofitting, he is adding at least double that amount to the house's market value. Making Your Home Sustainable is a practical and easy-to-follow guide for homeowners, builders and architects who are concerned about the effects of climate change and environmental degradation, and who want to do something about reversing the trend. Derek Wrigley shows how simple modifications to existing homes can help to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and utilise natural rather than imported energies and resources. He clearly explains how to: Identify retrofitting potential when buying a home; Rationalise energy and water consumption; Provide sunshine in southern rooms, warmth in winter, and cool air in summer; Use ventilation and insulation to reduce the need for artificial heating or cooling; Install a solar hot-water system; Utilise wasted sunlight to heat and illuminate your home; Create a beautiful landscape which also contributes to your household energy efficiency; and Install reflectors, sunshades, water recycling, heliostats, double-glazing, photovoltaics, water tanks, and other energy-saving and water-saving devices. With detailed descriptions, and around 150 photographs and diagrams, this revised edition of MAKING YOUR HOME SUSTAINABLE is the retrofitter's bible - an ideal, practical guide for anyone who wants to make their home more comfortable and save money on energy bills while increasing the value of their house and addressing the causes of global warming.

Sustainable Home Refurbishment

Author: David Thorpe
Publisher: Earthscan
ISBN: 1849776520
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
A retro-fit offers many benefits: cutting electricity and heating bills, increasing the resale value of homes, slashing carbon emissions and creating a healthier place to live. This book is the guide to making it happen. It looks at: draught-proofing, insulation and damp ventilation, heating and cooling electrical efficiency and renewable energy water use and re-use materials' life cycles and incorporating nature protection from climate change impacts - modelling energy flows and embodied energy how we can meet the need to cut carbon emissions from dwellings by eighty percent by 2050. Projects can apply to apartment blocks, recent builds and older, solid-walled properties. Enlivened with helpful diagrams and photographs, plus plenty of pointers for further information, it provides a comprehensive resource handbook for any building professional and contractor, students - or any homeowner serious about efficiency (cash and carbon) savings.

Old House Eco Handbook

Author: Roger Hunt
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
ISBN: 0711239770
Category : House & Home
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Book Description
How should we go about making old houses energy efficient without devaluing future sustainability or the appeal and character of old homes by the use of inappropriate solutions? This practical and essential guide to retrofitting for energy efficiency seeks to provide answers to this and other the questions homeowners of old houses are asking. Whether your house is medieval and timber-framed or a Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian terrace, it can be made more energy efficient and sustainable, and this practical and comprehensive handbook will show you how. Revised and updated throughout, and with a foreword by Kevin McLoud, Old House Eco Handbook includes chapters on the building envelope; roofs and ceilings; windows and doors; walls; floors; paints; energy, airandwater; plus a brand newchapter on retrofit materials. In association with The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, this is a must have for owners of old houses looking to make their homes more energy efficient and sustainable. Chapters Include: 1. Old houses can be green 2. Old house to eco house 3. The building envelope 4. Retrofit materials 5. Roofs and ceilings 6. Windows and doors 7. Walls 8. Floors 9. Paints 10. Energy, air and water 11. Old house for the future

Old House Eco Handbook

Author: Roger Hunt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780711232785
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Book Description
Old House Eco Handbook is a companion volume to the authors' highly successful Old House Handbook, published in association with the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB). It seeks to answer the questions homeowners and others are asking about how to make old houses - medieval and timberframed, Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian terraces - energy-efficient and sustainable. The refurbishment or 'retrofitting' of old houses to meet new requirements into the future is now high on the Government's agenda. Old houses are, by their nature, a sustainable asset: their refurbishment is becoming a priority as attempts are made to address millions of energy-sapping, poorly insulated and far from airtight homes.

The Power of Existing Buildings

Author: Robert Sroufe
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 164283050X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Book Description
Your building has the potential to change the world. Existing buildings consume approximately 40 percent of the energy and emit nearly half of the carbon dioxide in the US each year. In recognition of the significant contribution of buildings to climate change, the idea of building green has become increasingly popular. But is it enough? If an energy-efficient building is new construction, it may take 10 to 80 years to overcome the climate change impacts of the building process. New buildings are sexy, but few realize the value in existing buildings and how easy it is to get to “zero energy” or low-energy consumption through deep energy retrofits. Existing buildings can and should be retrofit to reduce environmental impacts that contribute to climate change, while improving human health and productivity for building occupants. In The Power of Existing Buildings, academic sustainability expert Robert Sroufe, and construction and building experts Craig Stevenson and Beth Eckenrode, explain how to realize the potential of existing buildings and make them perform like new. This step-by-step guide will help readers to: understand where to start a project; develop financial models and realize costs savings; assemble an expert team; and align goals with numerous sustainability programs. The Power of Existing Buildings will challenge you to rethink spaces where people work and play, while determining how existing buildings can save the world. The insights and practical experience of Sroufe, Stevenson, and Eckenrode, along with the project case study examples, provide new insights on investing in existing buildings for building owners, engineers, occupants, architects, and real estate and construction professionals. The Power of Existing Buildings helps decision-makers move beyond incremental changes to holistic, results-oriented solutions.

Energy Management in Industry

Author: David Thorpe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134649347
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Book Description
Energy demand reduction is fast becoming a business activity for all companies and organisations because it can increase profits regardless of the nature of their core activity. The International Energy Agency believes that industry could improve its energy efficiency and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by almost a third using the best available practices and technologies. This guide looks at the many ways available to energy managers to achieve or even exceed this level of performance, including: base-lining consumption planning a monitoring and verification strategy metering (including smart, wireless metering) energy supply management motors and drives compressed air and process controls. Uniquely, it includes a whole chapter on greening data centres. It also looks at topics covered in greater detail in its companion volume, Energy Management in Buildings: insulation, lighting, renewable heating, cooling and HVAC systems. Further chapters examine minimising water use and how to make the financial case, both to prioritise measures for cost effectiveness, and to get management on board. This title is aimed at all professional energy, industry and facilities managers, energy consultants, students, trainees and academics and can be read alongside training for ISO 50001 - Energy Management Systems. It takes the reader from basic concepts to the latest advanced thinking, with principles applicable anywhere in the world and in any climate.

Sustainable Retrofit and Facilities Management

Author: Paul Appleby
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135121761
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
Governments across the globe are setting targets for reducing their carbon emissions. For example, the UK Government has committed to an eighty per cent reduction by 2050, when twenty-eight million buildings that currently exist will still be standing; this represents a challenge to improve the energy efficiency of more than one building per minute between now and 2050! This is a problem that needs tackling worldwide and is a challenge to both the refurbishment sector of the global construction industry and to those who own and operate existing buildings. Sustainable Retrofit and Facilities Management provides comprehensive guidance to those involved in the refurbishment and management of existing buildings on minimizing carbon emissions, water consumption and waste to landfill, along with enhancing the long term sustainability of a building. Practical guidance is provided on measures that can be used to improve the efficiency and sustainability of existing buildings, through both good management and refurbishment. Also explored is the relationship between the refurbishment of existing buildings, facility management and the wider community infrastructure. The book looks at management tools such as post occupancy evaluation, building health checks, energy management software, green building management toolkits and green leases. Illustrated throughout with case studies and examples of best practice, this is a must-have handbook for engineers, architects, developers, contractors and facility managers.

Solar Home Heating Basics

Author: Dan Chiras
Publisher: New Society Publishers
ISBN: 1550925083
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
As fossil fuel supplies dwindle, home heating will be one of the major challenges in temperate and cold climates in upcoming years. The reserves of natural gas used to heat the majority of North American buildings are rapidly being depleted. This latest Green Energy Guide helps readers who want to slash their energy bills and reduce their dependence on scarce resources to navigate the sometimes confusing maze of clean, reliable, and affordable options. Solar Home Heating Basics focuses on renewable energy strategies to heat new and existing homes and small businesses. These include: *Energy efficiency, weatherization, and insulation *Solar hot air heating *Solar thermal systems *Passive solar heating *Backup heating systems While most solar home heating resources are geared primarily towards new buildings, this practical guide addresses ways of retrofitting existing buildings, making solar a reality for many people. Packed with all the essential information home and small business owners need to find alternatives to conventional heating solutions, Solar Home Heating Basics is your key to a personal energy solution. Dan Chiras is a respected educator and the author of thirty books on residential renewable energy and green building, including The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy and Power from the Sun. Dan is the director and lead instructor at the Evergreen Institute's Center for Renewable Energy and Green Building, where he teaches workshops on energy efficiency, solar electricity, solar hot water, small wind energy, green building, natural plasters, and natural building.

A Handbook of Sustainable Building Design and Engineering

Author: Dejan Mumovic
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113657316X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 476

Book Description
The combined challenges of health, comfort, climate change and energy security cross the boundaries of traditional building disciplines. This authoritative collection, focusing mostly on energy and ventilation, provides the current and next generation of building engineering professionals with what they need to work closely with many disciplines to meet these challenges. A Handbook of Sustainable Building Engineering covers: how to design, engineer and monitor a building in a manner that minimises the emissions of greenhouse gases; how to adapt the environment, fabric and services of existing and new buildings to climate change; how to improve the environment in and around buildings to provide better health, comfort, security and productivity; and provides crucial expertise on monitoring the performance of buildings once they are occupied. The authors explain the principles behind built environment engineering, and offer practical guidance through international case studies.

Old House Handbook

Author: Roger Hunt
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
ISBN: 0711281483
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
This fully revised and updated book is the authoritative guide on how to look after your old house – whether it is a timber-framed medieval cottage, an eighteenth-century town house or a Victorian or Edwardian terrace. Written in association with The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the authors’ approach is one of respect, restraint and repair rather than ‘restoration’, which can so easily and permanently destroy the special qualities of an old building. From the foundations to the roof, from the need for modern services to traditional paintwork and finishes, from windows and doors to breathability and damp in walls and floors, this handbook provides informed practical guidance. It is essential reading on maintenance and repair for all those with an old house.