The Sustainability Review:
My Essential Resources

I’m going to depart a smidge from our house this month and talk about something more general, essential information resources I use all the time when researching questions regarding sustainability. Some of these will be books I read and reread and others will be websites.

Homepower magazine – The bible publication of the renewable energy movement. There is no other publication out there regarding the RE world other than this. It has been around since the late 70’s and has been the outlet for anything renewable since then. There are extremely technical to very basic how to articles for every reader. I recommend this highly to anyone wishing to learn about RE. The Latah library has a subscription and several years back plus their website has all the back issues available for a price. www.homepower.com

Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings (the MEEB) - Almost every architect in the world is going to have this book because it is the bible of building engineering. Lying down it’s about 3” thick and something to lug around. It is very technical and talks about every aspect of buildings. This book isn’t specifically oriented to green building although they go into solar engineering in detail.

The Solar House: Passive Heating and Cooling – I recently purchased this book and have found it to be an excellent resource on the topic of passive solar design. Chiras addresses the past/present well and speaks from personal experience.

Green Building Products: The GreenSpec Guide to Residential Building Materials – I picked this book up at the Natural Abode last year and am very impressed with it. It is a categorical guide to green building material manufacturers. There are excellent descriptions of the materials themselves plus detailed descriptions of why these materials are considered green. The authors have a very real world logical approach to the guide. A website does exist that is the most current listing however there is a subscription fee to view the site. www.buildinggreen.com

Greenbuilding email list – This is an email list of many greenbuilding professionals and ordinary individuals that converse about anything regarding building. I get a single email daily containing all the days conversations compacted together. http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/greenbuilding_listserv.repp.org
Other Homes and Garbage - Designs for Self-Sufficient Living – This is one of the original books on alternative building. I found it years ago at a used bookstore and find it invaluable. It discusses everything from permaculture concepts to building solar collectors. The book doesn’t just give you an overview but goes into the science and math behind the ideas. They’ll explain how to do heat loss calculations in detail and calculate flow rates in water systems.

Mother Earth News magazine– I recently obtained issues 1-30 of this magazine. It is such a fascinating read especially the early years of the magazine. There are so many articles on building just about anything you can imagine. I find the modern day Mother magazines to be a little less informative and too many ads. The old ones are a treasured resource to many people.

Greenpages – This is regional publication of the EcoBuilding Guild that is a list of designers, builders, suppliers, and manufacturers specific to an area that specialize in green building or materials. The publication is free and available locally at the Natural Abode. http://www.ecobuilding.org/green_pages/

Solar Hot Water Systems: Lessons Learned 1977 to Today – I’ve purchased most of the books on solar hot water and none of them can come close to the information contained in this one. Tom Lane is an authority on solar hot water systems and in this book he presents all the systems and talks very specifically about the pros/cons of them. It is a rather technical book and written more for the designer/installer than someone just looking for basic information. www.ecs-solar.com

There are many other great resources out there addressing topics of sustainability and I would love to hear from you that could add to my list. I try to keep up on the movement and read what I can but sometimes I fall behind.

Mike and his family are enjoying the snow and the clear winter views of the Seven Devils.

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