Sue Roaf never fails to impress with her inexaustible energy, forthright opinion and attention to detail. Ecohouse has become a classic in the green building genre. This book, the third edition, builds on the strengths of the two previous issues and keeps the subjects covered pretty well all up-to-date. Ecohouse is an all-encompasing tome so sit back and don’t be prepared to dash through every subject that green building embraces. Don’t expect to be short-changed either. It has been written as an ‘international’ book, with a quarter of the book dedicated to case studies, mostly from abroad, although the underlying philosophy from them all could be usefully adapted to UK buildings. However, Roaf has ensured a formulaic methodology to string them all together. This ensures that the book has appeal to an international audience and reflects Roaf’s background in acedemia, which naturally sees the whole world as a shared space.
The book deals with the design and building of actual houses. The new edition has been expanded to include advice on powering ecohouses using various forms of renewable energy (PV, wind, micro hydro, biomass and ground source heat pumps). It also includes more on water conservation plus an introduction to low-impact materials, such as lime, hemp and earth, with construction approaches. There are several new case studies from across the globe that demonstrate sustainable design action in practice.
In the introduction to the third edition Roaf sets the scene by outlining the changes across the world since the second edition was published in 2003. A lot has happened to prove that climate change is a reality and now taken seriously by politicians around the world. She refers to four events, in particular, and the consequences of these; the European heat wave of 2003; the power failures in the USA in 2003; the New Orleans flooding in 2005 caused by Hurricane Katrina; and the inexorable rise of oil and gas prices.
A vital read or update for anyone who wants to get to grips with the issues of sustainability and domestic design.

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