Comfort in Any Climate

Comfort in any Climate is a guide to the basics of passive solar design for any climate in a highly pictorial format, giving the reader an overview of the essential principles necessary for high-efficiency homes. This is not a "how-to" book that shows you how to build a house. Rather it is a conceptual book that rapidly conveys the important ideas about how to build a house that requires little or no supplementary heating and cooling. In explaining the basic principles of conductance, convection, and radiance, the three ways heat is transferred to the environment, the author lays the foundation for an in-depth discussion of the principles of passive solar and earth-sheltered construction. To learn the basic principles of radiant solar energy, observe a dog. In the summer he lies in the shade. In the winter he lies in the sun. As simplistic as this concept seems, it is often ignored in contemporary building design, where the prevalent view is that any issue of comfort can be solved thro