Sun Plans :: Sun-Inspired Passive Solar House Plans Drawings Available for Passive Solar Sun Plans In addition to creating new sun-inspired designs, Sun Plans has several types of house plan drawings that will make planning a sun-inspired home easier! Customization of each design is available. Choose from several options as described below or begin with: Illustrates the sun-inspired principles in both educational material and in house plan examples. Study the design of a home inside and out without the clutter of construction information. Review the construction details of a house plan with your builder, who may create a budget estimate. Ready to build! Make changes, then build. A service that reverses the home along the north-south axis. A comprehensive service included with Construction Prints and CAD Files. Alert: Several customers have mentioned that certain builders and designers (architects typically are aware of the illegal nature of the action) have told them that they do not need to purchase Construction Prints or CAD files. New!
Passive Solar Home Design Passive solar design takes advantage of a building’s site, climate, and materials to minimize energy use. A well-designed passive solar home first reduces heating and cooling loads through energy-efficiency strategies and then meets those reduced loads in whole or part with solar energy. Because of the small heating loads of modern homes it is very important to avoid oversizing south-facing glass and ensure that south-facing glass is properly shaded to prevent overheating and increased cooling loads in the spring and fall. Energy Efficiency First Before you add solar features to your new home design or existing house, remember that energy efficiency is the most cost-effective strategy for reducing heating and cooling bills. Site Selection If you’re planning a new passive solar home, a portion of the south side of your house must have an unobstructed “view” of the sun. How a Passive Solar Home Design Works Properly oriented windows. Refining the Design Direct Gain Indirect Gain (Trombe Wall)
Toolbox: Passive Makes Perfect | Green Building and Design Zehnder ComfoAir 550 HRV Don’t be fooled by its compact size; the ComfoAir 550 is Passive House certified and rated at 84 percent efficiency. It handles up to 324 cubic feet of air per minute and comes equipped with extras like automatic frost protection and a wireless remote control. Find it in Fabrica718’s retrofitted Tighthouse, and its ERV cousin in the Empowerhouse. Phase Change BioPCmat Tuck this stuff into insulated roofs, ceilings, and walls, then sit back and watch your energy costs drop. GreenWizard WORKflow PRO You’re starting a new project. The Greenest Home Julie Torres Moskovitz, founder of the Brooklyn-based design firm Fabrica718 (p. 52), brings you nearly 200 pages of illustrated inspiration in her book The Greenest Home. Seeley International Climate Wizard Last year this Aussie product was among the winners of the 2013 World Ag Expo Top 10 New Products Competition. Marvin Ultimate Casement Window
Don't Forget to Clean Here When it’s time for spring cleaning, you think of opening all the windows, letting the fresh breezes replace the stale air in the rooms while you sweep and mop and dust the surfaces ignored all through the winter. But there are more shadowy areas in your home that need attention. Spending just a few minutes on these five often overlooked spots will transform your space into a cleaner, more liveable environment, perfect for spring and summer fun and relaxation. The Refrigerator Who knows what’s living in those jelly jars at the very back of your refrigerator shelves? Food keeps longer in the freezer, but it can still pass a useable date. The exterior of the refrigerator needs your attention, too. Your Beds and Pillows Sure, you’ve cleaned all your linens, packed away all the heavy blankets, and changed your sheets but there’s a little more cleaning to be done around your bed. Sometimes laundering your sheets and blankets isn’t enough. The Computer The Trash Can Your Vacuum
40 learning websites The indexed web contains an incredible 14 billion pages. But only a tiny fraction help you improve your brain power. Here are 40 of the best. whizzpast.com – Learn about our awe inspiring past all in one wonderful place. khanacademy.org – Watch thousands of micro-lectures on topics ranging from history and medicine to chemistry and computer science. freerice.com – Help end world hunger by correctly answering multiple-choice quizzes on a wide variety of subjects. artofmanliness.com – Blog/site dedicated to all things manly, great for learning life skills and good insights. unplugthetv.com – Randomly selects an educational video for you to watch. coursera.org – An educational site that works with universities to get their courses on the Internet, free for you to use. mentalfloss.com – Interesting articles guaranteed to make you smile and get you thinking. feelgoodwardrobe.com – Find out how the world of fashion really works and what you can do to combat it. lifehacker.com – Learn to hack life!
Cabin Porn Welcome to the Home of the Future Building materials: Wooden skyscrapers WHEN life hands you lemons, goes the old saw, make lemonade. But what if life should hand you 18m hectares (44m acres) of dead trees? That is the problem faced by the province of British Columbia in Canada, which could lose over half its pine trees to the depredations of the fearsome mountain pine beetle. The beetle, no bigger than a grain of rice, is native to the forests of Western North America, where it kills trees by releasing a blue stain fungus that prevents the flow of water and nutrients. As a result, the province is peppered with billions of dead, grey trees. So, to deal with the problem, in 2009 British Columbia's parliament passed a Wood First Act that requires wood to be considered as the primary construction material in all new buildings erected with public money. Other big customers, such as the Japanese, dislike the blue-tinged lumber. Canadian researchers have discovered other uses for BKP. Even more esoteric uses for BKP are on the table.
HomeTips | Expert Home Improvement Advice Teaching kids how to write computer programs, by Marshall Brain by Marshall Brain Quick Intro - If you are looking for a quick and easy way to teach your kid a real programming language, without downloading anything or buying anything, try these Python tutorials. Your kid will be writing and modifying code in just a few minutes. Marshall Brain's quick and easy Python tutorials Let's say that you have children, and you would like to help them learn computer programming at a youngish age. As the father of four kids, I have tried to approach it from several different angles. Let's start with a something important: Every kid is different. The second thing to realize is that real analytical skills often don't start appearing until age 11 or 12 or 13 in many kids, so expecting huge breakthroughs prior to that may be unrealistic. That being said, there are lots of fun things you can try as early as five or six... Games Let's start with a few games. Then there is this game, which actually does a very good job of teaching simple programming skills: Python for Kids
Form and Pour a Concrete Slab Project overview and what you can save Forming and pouring a concrete slab can be intimidating. Your heart races because you know that any mistake, even a little one, can quickly turn your slab into a big mess, a mistake literally cast in stone. In this article, we'll walk you through the slab-pouring process so you get it right the first time. We'll pay particular attention to the tough parts where you're most likely to goof. Still, pouring a large concrete slab isn't a job for a beginner. The bulk of the work for a new slab is in the excavation and form building. In our area, hiring a concrete contractor to pour a 16 x 20-ft. slab like this one would cost $3,000 to $4,000. Step 1: Prepare the site Before you get started, contact your local building department to see whether a permit is required and how close to the lot lines you can build. Your concrete slab will last longer, with less cracking and movement, if it's built on solid, well-drained soil. Thickened slab detail 1 of 3 2 of 3