Energy prices are on many minds at the moment, and often it is economics that drives change with the environment looking to benefit.
Giving a helping hand with ditching expensive and emissions-heavy, coal and gas (and nuclear) driven homes, is The Renewable Energy Home Handbook.
And Marlborough News Online has a competition to win the book, along with an unbeatable reader offer.
Just published, the book is a step-by-step guide to choosing and installing renewable energy projects – insulation and energy saving, biomass heating, wind turbines, solar electric PV generation, solar water heating, heat pumps – everything a home needs from wind, sun, water – and wood.
There is even advice on living ‘off-grid’ for complete energy self-sufficiency.
The book is geared to those comfortable with a spanner but not to do it themselves. Rather it aims to help the clever customer, those who want to thoughtfully plan eco-domestic installations rather than leap into it with the vague idea that it is a ‘good thing’.
Just like finding any good tradesman, it is important to use companies skilled in this field – there is nothing worse than duff advice where your life’s most expensive purchase (and investment) is concerned. And this book has been written with meticulous research from experts in domestic renewable energy, most of whom are found in the UK.
The author, Lindsay Porter, is one of the country’s most successful motoring writers, and pioneered the picture-led manual with Haynes back in the 1970s. Now he has turned his hand to authoring his other love – environmentally-friendly self-build.
For the past 40 years he has built, added, and renovated his country cottage. Back in the 1970s he stumbled across the Scandinavian standards of building insulated homes, way ahead of the UK’s ‘universal gas guzzling houses’ and adopted their methods into his own house.
The Renewable Energy Home Handbook, published by Veloce Publishing, is a solid book, around letter paper size, with over 800 images across nearly 200 pages.
Marlborough News Online has one of these books for a lucky winner. To be in with a chance of winning, just answer this question: What form of heating does the book cover?
Email your answer to pete@marlboroughnewsonline.co.uk
Competition closes 11.59pm on Thursday, April 16 2015. A winner will be chosen at random from all correct entries received by the closing date.
Even if you aren’t the lucky winner (or you just can’t wait), buy it for a specially reduced price, exclusive to Marlborough News Online readers. Visit www.veloce-eco.com and use the code MNOnline, reducing the book from £24.99 to £15.99 (plus P&P) – an amazing £9 discount.
Just pop the code into the discount voucher box on the purchase page here: http://ww8.aitsafe.com/cf/add.cfm