Review of Eco House Manual
Review Of Eco House Manual
A review of the Eco-House Handbook by Nigel Griffiths (Haynes manual)
shopping | general | energy efficiency | carbonThe
Eco-House Manual by
Nigel Griffiths is a guide to carrying out "
environmentally friendly improvements to your home". It is published by
Haynes - better known for their ever popular guides to
vehicle maintainance. The author
Nigel Griffiths is an eco-building and conservation writer and specialist in the sustainable renovation of older property.
Eco-House Manual is split into the following ten chapters:
1. Principles of eco-renovation.
2. Construction materials.
3. Reducing heat loss.
4. Heating.
5. Electricity Demand.
6. Micro-generation.
7. Water.
8. Interiors.
9. Waste and pollution.
10. Exterior space and gardens.
Although the book is generally useful and of interest for anyone interested in improving or renovating their home in an
environmentally friendly manner, the chapters of most relevance to REUK.co.uk site visitors are
Heating - which details
solar water heaters,
heat pumps, and
passive solar design;
Micro-generation - which covers
PV solar panels,
micro wind turbines, and other technologies; and
Water - which covers
rainwater harvesting and
water conservation. The chapter which covers
Electricity Demand also has a lot of useful information on energy
efficient artificial lighting and on
light tubes (used to bring natural light into windowless and other dark rooms).
Overall this book is very well written, comprehensive, detailed, and easy to understand. There are very many colour photographs (which are not always very useful) and also some excellent colour schematic diagrams and system plans (which illustrate concepts very clearly). The two-page illustrated guide to
Installing a Tubular Daylight System (light tube / sun pipe) for example is excellent.
This book was first published in mid-2007 and some items are now a little dated - particularly the information on the grants which are available to people installing
alternative energy systems. The book contains a lot of phone numbers and web addresses which are likely to slowly become obsolete over the coming years - however, at the time of writing (March 2009) the vast majority of the information remains valid. The technologies covered remain up-to-date - primarily because the newer technologies discussed (such as
micro wind turbines) are not covered in very deep detail anyway.
This book is
recommended reading for anyone interested in improving their home in an eco-friendly manner.
Buy Eco-House Manual
Eco-House Manual is sold at an RRP of
£19.99, but is available for less that online and also on special offer in major bookshops from time to time. The ISBN of this 168 page book is
978-1-84425-405-7. Click here to buy
Eco-House Handbook now from
Amazon UK (typically for below £14).
Other Reading
If you are interested in
Eco-House Manual then you will also be interested in reading our review of
Converting to an Eco-Friendly Home.
Article Last Modified: 09:15, 14th Mar 2009Comment on this Article
If you have any comments on this article, please email them to
neil@reuk.co.uk.
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