Your Ecological House Part 1: Understanding Your Home Ecosystem

by Philip S. Wenz

Overview

Your Ecological House is your guide to creating your “home ecosystem,” an integrated habitat that conserves and produces energy, reduces waste and produces food and other goods. Written by ecological design and construction expert Philip S. Wenz, Your Ecological House is a selection of articles from his nationally syndicated newspaper column by the same name.

But the book is more than just a collection of articles. The articles have been organized into sections covering topics that will help you understand your home ecosystem (Part 1), and then design and create it (Part 2). Offering unique advice on how to find practical, cost-effective solutions to real problems, the book helps you become your own designer, or work effectively with professional green designers and builders.

Each section has its own Introduction that gives you an overview of the topics explored in its articles. Also, each original newspaper article has been expanded, annotated and cross referenced to related articles and to the book's extensive, annotated Resource section and Glossary.

Part 1, Understanding Your Home Ecosystem, (71,300 words) explains: 1) the home ecosystem concept, 2) conserving energy, 3) harvesting sunlight, 4) conserving and reusing water and, 5) Integrating your yard and garden into your home ecosystem.

Part 2, Creating Your Ecological House, will be published in Spring, 2017. Its sections address: 1) Designing Your Ecological House, 2) green building materials 3) green building components, 4) green heating and cooling, 5) maintaining Your Ecological House and, 6) How to be an Earth Steward.

Author Philip S. Wenz spent 35 years designing, building, teaching and writing in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the founder and former Director of the Ecological Design Program at the San Francisco Institute of Architecture, and a long-standing instructor at Berkeley’s Owner Builder Center, where he taught courses in residential construction and remodeling to home owners. He is the author of the book Adding to A House: Planning, Design and Construction (Taunton Press, 1995). Wenz currently lives with his wife in Monmouth, Oregon, where he writes his Your Ecological House newspaper column and works on his home ecosystem.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940153936796
Publisher:	Philip S. Wenz
Publication date:	12/29/2016
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Philip S. Wenz is a designer, contractor, teacher and writer. He has been concerned about the state of our environment since his youth, and has emphasized “green building” ideas and techniques throughout his career. A partial list of his professional experience includes:

* 35 (+) years as a designer and general contractor specializing in residential remodeling in the San Francisco Bay Area. During his building career, Wenz designed virtually everything he built, and took numerous projects from the preliminary design stage to completion. He also designed projects for other builders and their clients. His latest project was a passive/active solar home built in Corvallis, Oregon.

* 25 (+) years as a teacher at Berkeley's Building Education Center (formerly Owner Builder Center), where he taught “House Building and Remodeling” (rewriting and expanding the school's original course format); and created and taught courses in Cabinet Making and Finish Carpentry and, most recently, Creating Your Ecological House.

* 10 (+) years as Director of the Ecological Design Program at the San Francisco Institute of Architecture (SFIA), where he obtained a master's degree in Ecological Design. At SFIA he created and taught the classes “Principles of Ecological Design” and the “Ecological Design Studio” (a “studio” in an architectural program is the equivalent of a “lab” in a chemistry class -- it's where students do their hands-on designing).

* He is the author of the book Adding to a House: Planning, Design and Construction (Taunton Press -- Fine Home Building Magazine, 1995, 263 pages). Adding to a House covers the entire topic of building residential additions in sufficient detail to be of use to a professional builder but is basic enough to appeal to home owners. The book was in print for about 10 years, and for a while was in the top 5% of Amazon's sales. As well as writing Adding to a House, Wenz drew all of the illustrations and took about half the photos.

* He has written articles for newspapers and technical publications throughout his career. Some of the latter include Fine Home Building Magazine, The Journal of Light Construction, The Owner Builder and Ecological Home Ideas and Planning.

* He is the creator and author of the nationally syndicated newspaper column Your Ecological House which has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle; Corvallis, Oregon, Gazette-Times; Albany, Oregon, Democrat-Herald; Helena, Montana, Independent-Record; Durango, Colorado, Herald; Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard, Rhode Island Call; Cape Fear (South Carolina) Going Green magazine and Ecological Home Ideas magazine. Selected articles from the Your Ecological House series are the basis for this book.

* He is the Publisher and Editor of the websites Ecotecture: The Journal of Ecological Design and Your Ecological House (www.ecotecture.com and www.ecotecture.com/your-ecological-house).

Philip lives in Monmouth, Oregon with his wife, Pam, where he divides his time between writing projects and continually improving their home ecosystem.

Contact him at [e-mail]