The Passive Solar House, Revised and Expanded Edition

The Complete Guide to Heating and Cooling Your Home

Revised and Expanded Edition—Includes CD-ROM with Custom Design Software

For the past ten years The Passive Solar House has offered proven techniques for building homes that heat and cool themselves, using readily available materials and methods familiar to all building contractors and many do-it-yourself homeowners.

True to this innovative, straightforward approach, the new edition of this best-selling guide includes CSOL passive solar design software, making it easier than ever to heat your home with the power of the sun. Since The Passive Solar House was first published, passive solar construction expert James Kachadorian has perfected user-friendly, PC-compatible software to supplement the design process explained in the book by allowing homeowners/designers to enter the specifications of their design and see how changing a variable will affect its energy efficiency.

This is the building book for a world of climbing energy costs. Applicable to diverse regions, climates, budgets, and styles of architecture, Kachadorian’s techniques translate the essentials of timeless solar design into practical wisdom for today’s solar builders. Profiles of successful passive solar design, construction, and retrofit projects from readers of the first edition provide inspiration to first-time homebuilders and renovators alike.

About the Author

James Kachadorian is a civil engineer with degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is the founder of Green Mountain Homes, which gained national recognition as the first provider of over 300 innovative, “kit” solar homes. He has lived in his own passive solar home in Woodstock, Vermont for over 25 years.

Priase for the first edition

“An essentially simple book, elegant in presentation and forceful in argument . . . a useful perspective in these resource-limited times.”

—Library Journal