We have a winner on our giveaway of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Renewable Energy for Your Home"

We had a giveaway of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Renewable Energy for Your Home" following the book's review last week.

We asked you to share with us what renewable energy system you would like to have at home and learned that most of you are interested (not surprisingly) in having solar panels. And we have a winner!

The winner of the giveaway is reader nfmgirl who wants it all, as she explains in her comment:

I always wanted a variety. I wanted to have a place out in the "boonies", and have some solar, some wind (a small windmill, not one of those monsters that explode bats lungs), and a water wheel. I want it all!

Congrats to nfmgirl and thanks to all the other participants. If you didn't win this time, don't worry - you'll have another chance to win a great green book in our next giveaway which will be online later on today.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green reading!

Green book review (and giveaway!): The Complete Idiot's Guide to Renewable Energy for Your Home

Our weekly green book review has moved this week to Tuesday because of technical problems yesterday. Still, it was worth waiting because we have a great book dealing with one of the hottest issues on the green agenda - renewable energy for homes.

Our book today is:

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Renewable Energy for Your Home

Author: Harvey Bryan and Brita Belli

Harvey Bryan has been involved in sustainability and renewable design concerns for some 30 years. He has previously taught at MIT and Harvard and is currently a full professor at Arizona State University. He was on the Board of Directors of the Arizona Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and is certified in both BREEAM (a rating system used in Europe and Canada), as well as LEED. He is currently serving on the Board of Directors on the Green Building Initiative.

Brita Belli is the editor of E / The Environmental Magazine, the largest independent magazine dedicated to green issues.

Publisher: Alpha (a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.)

Published on: July 2009

What this book is about? (from the publisher's website)
An essential how-to on powering your home with sun, wind, water, and more.
For readers wanting to save money—and the planet—by using alternative energy, this book provides everything they need to know. The five basic sources are fully covered: sun, wind, water, earth, and bio.

The benefits, what is needed, and whether it will work for a particular home are all carefully laid out in this comprehensive overview:
• Solar energy for home heating, water heating, and electricity
• Wind power, hydrogen, and micro hydro power
• Heat pumps—air, geothermal, and water source
• Heating with wood and going bio

What we think about it?
Everyone knows renewable energy is good in general and for your home specifically and that it's good for the environment and for your wallet. But what's next? what do you do if you actually decided to move forward and green up your existing or new home with renewable energy devices? That's where this book becomes handy.

There's so much information available about solar, wind, hydropower and other alternative energy sources that you can very easily find yourself more confused and less confident in what you actually need to do. "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Renewable Energy for Your Home" is trying to make some order in this flood of information and to provide you a guidance that covers all the relevant aspects of choosing and using renewable energy systems at home.

And it does a pretty good job. It gives clear explanations on the options, the benefits, compare between options and even helps you to understand ratings of systems such as solar water heating systems.

The book includes updated information on one of the important issues involved in purchasing a renewable energy system - the benefits you can - tax credits, rebates, etc. There's also information divided to areas as the benefits in Florida are not similar to the ones in the Midwest.

Another important chapter I was glad to see in this book is "Size Matters" that reminds us that one of the sources of the energy problem we have is not only the current sources of energy but the size of the houses, which increased in 140% in the last 4 decades (2,349 square feet in average in the US - 2004 figures).

Bottom line: If you're thinking about getting a renewable energy system for your home, get this book! It may be a little too heavy for the beach but if you find a cool spot take it with you.

GIVEAWAY ALERT!!

We're giving away our review copy of the book, courtesy of the book's publicist, and of course a tree will be planted for the copy!

How you can win? Please add a comment below with an answer the following question: What renewable energy system you would like to have at home? Submissions are accepted until Tuesday, August 25, 12PM EST. The winner will be announced the following day.

If you're looking for other interesting green-themed books, you are invited to check out our green books page on Eco-Libris website's green resources section.

More relevant links:

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Building and Remodeling

Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: plant a tree for every book you read!

Monday's green books series: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Cleaning, 2nd Edition

Do you like cleaning? my guess is that you don't. But cleaning is one of the things almost everybody does, like it or not, and it's like a Trojan Horse that brings into your home a lot of chemicals you wouldn't really like to be around.

So what do you do? you can find the answer/s on our latest book on Monday's green books series.

Our book for today is:

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Cleaning, 2nd Edition

Author: Mary Findley and Linda Formichelli

Mary Findley is is a veteran cleaning expert and president of the Mary Moppins Company. A leading cleaning expert in the RV industry, she shares her proven tips at her well-received seminars as well as through magazine and newspaper articles and newsletters. her customers.

Linda Formichelli is the co-author of several books. She's also written for more than 120 magazines, including Family Circle, Woman's Day, Woman's World, USA Weekend, Fitness, and Psychology Today.

Publisher: Alpha Books

Published on: March 2009 (first edition was published on March 2006)

What it is about (from the publisher's website):
Become a green cleaning machine. Fully updated and revised to focus on cleaning the “green” way—naturally, with no chemicals—this guide takes readers room-by- room, teaching them how to clean thoroughly, efficiently, and in an environmentally sound way. New and expanded coverage includes info on making small changes that have a huge impact on cleaning difficult areas, green-ifying personal care products, and more.

The book provides specific cleaning hints and teaches how to clean quickly and efficiently. It uses only common ingredients, but also provides suggestions for alternatives that readers might like better

Why you should get it:
1. Some people believe that green cleaning is a time consuming activity and therefore prefer to skip it, but this book's promise is to teach you how to clean quickly, efficiently and of course in an eco-friendly manner. Could it be better?

2. Actually yes. Usually, when you use natural materials such as baking soda (the queen of green cleaning), lemon juice, vinegar and so on for cleaning, you will find that you also save money. So if you were wondering if there's an added value to these tips versus using green cleaning products (which is a good option as well), this is one of the main ones - you will save a lot of money this way.

3. Stains! This is something I find really annoying (who doesn't), and I need to deal with it on daily basis these days thanks to a cute 9-month baby. Now, this book includes Mary's A-Z stain removal guide that teaches you "not only how to remove each stain from eight different surfaces but also nifty tricks for blotting and handling large liquid spills in carpeting." I can definitely use nifty tricks and I'm sure many parents can find them useful as well.

What others say about the book (its first edition):

"I was looking forward to reading Mary Findley and Linda Formichelli's "Complete Idiot's Guide to Cleaning" in the hopes that it might provide some cleaning solutions that didn't require either serious scrubbing or harsh, toxic chemicals--things that don't go well with my tendonitis and allergies.

That, of course, is a tall order, and one that I didn't really expect the book to fulfill. However, it succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Mary Findley is a huge proponent of safe, non-toxic, biodegradable cleaning solutions using, when possible, everyday easy-to-find supplies. Of course, I figured there'd be a price for this. After all, why would people make and buy expensive, harsh, dangerous chemicals if things you could make out of vinegar, water, and a couple of other everyday ingredients could do as good a job?

That's where the real shock came in. There's one all-purpose solution Mary recommends that involves water with a bit of vinegar and all-natural dish soap that knocks my socks off. Our stovetop was in pretty sad shape and I was sure it was going to take a ton of scrubbing to get it clean. I sprayed this stuff on, let it sit, then wiped it off with a terrycloth towel. And the gunk came right off with it." H. Grove from Maryland (from the book's web page)

If you're looking for other interesting green-themed books, you are invited to check out our green books page on our website's green resources section.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!