Böcker av Dept of Housing and Urban Development

This publication of passive solar projects built in the United States has been prepared to document the state of the art in passive solar design. Passive solar heating and cooling can provide a major percentage of the buildings' energy requirement, while at the same time representing a heightened level of involvement for the architect in the design stages of the building. The full potential of this passive conditioning depends on a sensitive awareness of the relationship between climate, comfort, and the thermal characteristics of buildings and building materials.Passive solar systems are often misunderstood and vaguely defined. Many of the approaches to passive solar heating and cooling are at rudimentary stages, with little performance data and evaluation, few modeling techniques, and minimal published information. Yet for the building designer and the occupant, these concepts have major implications in the design and use of buildings. The purpose of this publication is to offer a working definition and a basic understanding of a number of existing applications of passive solar designs. Methods of passive solar design are not presented in this publication; nor are rules of thumb or passive solar assemblies and components. These subjects will be addressed in later publications. A reference bibliography has been included to assist the reader who desires more information and to stimulate additional individual research and testing. Passive design techniques can be integrated in an additive fashion in more typical buildings -but this challenge for now, is left to the reader.

Few people intentionally consider durability when designing a home, but rather rely on experience and market acceptance to make design decisions. This approach to design works best in a stable housing market where architectural preferences and material choices do not change or change very slowly. The housing market, however, tends to be dynamic rather than stable and new materials and preferences influence the market continuously, sometimes in dramatic ways. This dynamic condition also places a responsibility on designers and builders to properly apply their experiences, which are often based on older construction methods and materials, to new materials and design conditions. As a result, it is important to understand why certain practices have been effective (or ineffective) in the past so that they can be properly interpreted and considered in the design and construction of modern homes. Durability by Design: A Guide for Residential Builders and Designers is intended to raise the awareness and understanding of building durability as a design consideration in housing. The Guide covers basic concepts of durability and presents recommended practices -including numerous construction details and design data- for matters such as moisture management, ultraviolet (UV) protection, insects, decay, corrosion, and natural hazards. Some attention is also given to matters that may be considered serviceability issues related to normal wear-and-tear, aesthetics, or functions not immediately associated with durability. The contents of this Guide will help to preserve and promote "tried-and-true" practices and concepts related to housing durability, and present them in a manner that can be used to cost-effectively design the durable homes of the future.

This guide has been written by experts in the field to provide you, a consumer, with information about the use of solar energy to heat the water you use in your home. It is no secret that energy costs have been rising rapidly in the past several years, and that conventional sources of energy are in short supply.As more and more people feel the impact of the rising cost and limited availability of some types of energy, increasing attention is being given to the energy available in sunlight. No longer just a fad for some individual experimenters, no longer only a subject for scientific and engineering studies, solar energy applications are now a matter of intense interest to almost everyone.Of all of the ways in which we can capture and use solar energy to meet our needs, providing hot water is perhaps the simplest and most economical for the homeowner. Many manufacturers now make equipment and systems to provide solar-heated water, and many firms around the country are qualified to install, maintain, and service them. The Federal government and several states even provide tax credits to help cover the cost of solar energy systems.But deciding to buy and install a solar hot water system still requires you to consider a number of factors---whether the system will save you money now or in the future, what kind of system to buy and from whom to buy it, whether to install it yourself or have it installed, and similar matters. This guide is designed to provide some of the information you will need to make these decisions, and to tell you where to get the rest of the information you may need to install or have installed a satisfactory solar hot water system.