Energy Efficient Homes For Dummies – Rik DeGunther (KTE0023)

Energy Efficient Homes For Dummies, Contents:  

Part I: Solving the World’s Problems from Your Front Porch

Chapter 1: Defining Efficiency

Chapter 2: Energy Sources and Sinks

Chapter 3: Eliminating the Guesswork with Home Energy Audits

Chapter 4: Financing Efficiency Improvements

Chapter 5: Making Tradeoffs That Work for You

Part II: Reducing Inefficiencies throughout Your Home

Chapter 6: Keeping Your Home Free from Contaminants

Chapter 7: Sealing and Insulating Your Home

Chapter 8: Getting the Most Out of Your Heating and Air-Conditioning System

Chapter 9: Lighting Your Home More Efficiently

Chapter 10: Watering Down Your Water Consumption

Chapter 11: Pigging Out on Power with Appliances

Chapter 12: Controlling Solar Exposures in Your Home

Chapter 13: Breathing Homes: Ventilation, Fans, and Air Filters

Chapter 14: Reusing and Recycling: Play It Again, Sam

Part III: Putting Alternative Energy Sources to Work for You

Chapter 15: Burning Desires: Wood and Gas Stoves

Chapter 16: Shining a Light on Solar Power for Your Home

Chapter 17: Radiant Heating Systems

Chapter 18: Heating with Biomass Stoves

Chapter 19: Geothermal Energy: Straight from Mother Nature

Part IV: Considering Efficiency When You Buy, Build, or Sell a Home

Chapter 20: Looking at Community Solutions to Energy Efficiency

Chapter 21: Building an Energy-Efficient Home from the Ground Up

Chapter 22: Buying and Selling an Energy-Efficient Home

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 23: Ten Best Energy-Efficient Investments

Chapter 24: Ten Ridiculously Easy Energy-Saving Tips

Chapter 25: Ten Best Solar Investments

Energy Efficient Homes For Dummies

This book provides you with ample knowledge of energy- and cost-efficiency concepts to turn your home into a marvel of efficiency. You can do most of the projects and improvements I describe yourself. And when you need to hire a contractor, I tell you how best to go about the process.

People have their own fundamental reasons for wanting to achieve efficiency. Some people simply want to lower their operating costs, particularly with regard to energy consumption. Some people want to minimize their pollution footprint on the environment and will pay extra money to do so. Others just want to simplify their complicated lifestyles. In this book, I present you with the tradeoffs. I make no judgments about how you should order your priorities. I simply tell you how best to proceed, given the various alternatives. In other words, in this book I present the pros and cons of every issue and let you decide what’s best for you. I leave the nagging to somebody else.

In this book, you find information like

• What efficiency means and how you can put together your own efficiency plan
• What a home energy audit reveals about your household energy use and how you can perform an audit yourself
• How to seal your home against the weather, get better performance from your heating and air-conditioning systems for less cost, and other helpful suggestions and advice
• How to take advantage of Mother Nature and a few key tricks to maintain comfortable temperatures in your home
• How to reduce your waste by reusing and recycling
• The advantages and disadvantages of different energy alternatives — such as wood stoves, gas stoves, solar power, geothermal systems, and so on — which are becoming more common as the price of energy rises
• Your options for financing efficiency improvements

Some readers look at the table of contents and skip straight to a particular section that addresses an immediate need. Others start in Chapter 1 and work their way diligently to Chapter 25. And either approach is just fine and dandy because all For Dummies books are structured so that you can jump in and out or read them straight through to get the information you need.

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