Nonfiction Book Reviews

Got Sun? Go Solar: Get Free Renewable Energy to Power Your Grid-Tied Home by Rex A Ewing and Doug Pratt was a surprisingly interesting book.  I say that because I am of the non-mechanical variety, so I was prepared to be bored to tears by in-depth information that the average person (me) would never have a chance of understanding.

But I’ve always thought that running your house off solar power, even if it was just a partial supply of the total energy needed, was just such a great idea, that it would be worth it suffering through a boring book to learn more about it.

Unfortunately, most books covering this subject spend their time talking exclusively about how to power your house “off the grid” (meaning, not connected to any power lines - powered exclusively through wind, solar, and/or hydro power.)  I don’t know why, because the amount of people in the US living on the grid outnumber the ones living off the grid a million to one, at least.  So I was excited to see a book covering houses on the grid exclusively.

I also picked this book up because Rex Ewing is a name I recognize.  In the solar and wind industry, Rex is The Man.  He has lived in a house for years that is powered with just solar and wind power, so he knows of which he speaks.  He also spends a large amount of time writing books and consulting with home owners who want to do the same.  If he doesn’t know about it when it comes to solar power, it isn’t worth knowing.

Fair warning: The book does get technical when trying to explain how silicon works, but even then, the authors tried to inject some humor into the explanation.  Here’s a quotation from the silicon portion:

Chemically, silicon has 14 positively-charged protons, and 14 negatively-charged protons.  This would seem to be a happy arrangement, if not for the fact that it has room for four more electrons in its outer energy level.  How does it get them?  It could snatch four passing electrons from somewhere, but there would be no protons to hold them in place, so the kidnapped electrons would soon escape.
~Page 39 of “Got Sun? Go Solar”

It does obviously go on from there, but the point is: It’s readable. Even for people who are not chemists in another life, and who don’t play one on TV either.

Do I think that after reading this book, you’ll be able to go out and install your own solar powering system without a contractor to help you along the way? No way. But it does give you a good base of knowledge so that when you go to talk to an installer, you know the right questions.  Better yet, it will help you figure out if contacting an installer is even worth your time - it may not be in the realm of possibilities for you.

If adding solar power to your house is something you’ve thought about, and you want to learn more about the idea, then look no further than Got Sun? Go Solar. If you’re going to learn, it might as well be from the best.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Hava

Picture Credit: Nevmic

I have three brothers, and all they love to do is give me flack.  It’s their specialty.  So of course, Handsome Older Brother had to give me a hard time about my rating system, where I give out partial stars (3.75 out of 5 stars, etc).  I’ve also had other people comment that I have an “unusual” rating system (in other words, they’re being nicer than my brothers but are basically thinking the same thing.)

I figured it was about time I explained my rating system, so people could understand what I’m doing and how to read the ratings I give.  (Hint: Contrary to popular opinion, on my site, 4.75 is actually a perfect score.)  I wrote up a nice long post explaining everything, but then decided that I wanted to post it as a page instead, so people could refer to it from wherever they were at on the site by clicking on my links at the top of the page.

So now it’s published, and you can check it out here: The Inside Scoop on Ratings.  I almost left it at that, but then realized that a lot of my regular readers may not see it hiding up there, and would miss reading it (heaven forbid!)  Hence this post.

Tomorrow, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled reviews, with Got Sun? Go Solar as the featured book of the day.  See ya then!

Hava