Super House: Design Your Dream Home for Super Energy Efficiency, Total Comfort, Dazzling Beauty, Awesome Strength, and Economy

When I first looked at a copy of Super House, I was amazed at its breadth and depth, better than anything I have encountered before. It is about 700 pages long, beautifully illustrated, and with the clearest presentation that I can imagine for so much subject matter. I kept dipping into the book like a kid in a candy store, finding interesting reading on almost every page.The book’s title promotes it as a book on home design. However, only a fraction of potential Super House readers will actually use the book to design a new house. Most will use parts of it for smaller projects, for making repairs, and maybe even for selecting appliances.The book is organized to lead a do-it-yourself home designer through a sequence of eight design steps, each with its own chapter:1. architectural layout and appearance2. design of windows and skylights, and shading for them3. the structure of the house4. heating, cooling, and ventilation5. plumbing fixtures, water heaters, and water filtering6. lighting7. selecting the appliances8. dealing with contractors and architects.Each of these eight chapters is a treasure trove of information, most of which can be used independently. An excellent index leads to almost any topic related to home design, critical construction issues, and routine repairs to replaceable items like windows and roofing surfaces. However, the book does not teach basic building skills, such as carpentry or electrical wiring. The book is about design, not construction. To learn the trade skills that you would need to actually build a house, get other books or get a job with a construction crew.The book really does pursue the goal of creating a home that is “ideal.” In addition to optimizing the usual architectural and construction issues, the book seems determined to eliminate anything that would impair the long term comfort and pleasure of living in the house. For example, the book goes into detail about minimizing the hazards of radon, carbon monoxide, mildew, windstorms, burglary, and indoor air quality problems that originate in ducts and construction materials. If there is any important issue or minor improvement that has been left out, I haven’t found it.An appendix deals with various energy sources that the author does not consider to be ready for prime time. The degree of detail varies among these. The explanations of wood fueled heating and geothermal heat pumps are probably the best introductions to those topics that you can find anywhere. Summaries of the various kinds of solar energy systems are shorter, but still enlightening. The author dismisses wind generators for individual homes in half a page. He also gives short shrift to straw bale houses, earth sheltered houses, log homes, going off the grid, and sewage recycling. This last part of the book may provide the greatest benefit for some readers by keeping them from making bad choices that are expensive and irreversible.I have done quite a lot of home renovation, and I have many friends with similar interests. So, I bought several copies of Super House to give to friends who will enjoy it. Probably each one will use the book in a different way, and each one will profit from it.

The cover of SUPER HOUSE says "Design your Dream Home."I would add "...Even After it Has Been Built"Being a do-it-yourself kind of guy living in an old leaky farmhouse, I've looked at many home improvement manuals that do little to address the overall crappy design or condition of most houses regardless of age. Although SUPER HOUSE is cleverly organized to step you through the process of designing a house and getting it built, this book gave me an encyclopaedia of ideas and advice on how to improve my current house.The great pictures, charts and worksheets make this an easy read. It advises on many simple yet important improvements - more than I've found in any single book in the "home improvement" category in the library or internet.As a design book, it examines every part of a house from the foundation to the roof shingles. What makes this book different is it's coverage of many related but important issues such as natural disaster protection (earthquakes, hurricanes) and how to negotiate with contractors hired for the bigger jobs.It informed me on adding insulation, eliminating air leaks, strengthening the roof and walls, upgrading my windows and doors, replacing the clunky plumbing with a better designed system, installing the best looking light fixtures, choices of appliances and more. When many options are available and important choices need to be made, the book helpfully cuts through any confusion and recommends the best options.Very comprehensive at 700 pages, yet the great index, easy prose and elegant photos made it simple to find and learn what I needed to know (and what I didn't even know that I needed!)Although the title of the book implies that it is written primarily to help a novice to design a new home from scratch, it is my new reference book for home improvement. I don’t intend to build my "Super House" any time soon but this book has been so informative and helpful that it got me thinking that maybe I will some day design my dream home and move out of this old farm house - but for now the book will pay for itself just in energy savings alone!

I bought this when we were in the beginning stages of building our house. Very informative and detailed. It is a large book that covers many topics regarding designing and building your house.

This is incrediblel in that he not only has virtually anything you can think of, but I do believe him when he gives his plus and minus for each option/issue--From knowing the facts on a few items I can say he really doesn't slant things to sell you on his viewpoint but gives you the +/- of the options for YOU to decide the best! I usually never give out 5 stars, but this guy covers EVERYTHING and explains why he does or doesn't recommend things. He'll cover all the possible issues like for the most hardcore tree hugger: recycling wastewater for toilet flush/plant watering. I loved the forgotten things like a dressing room to keep the noise of the bathroom out of the master bedroom. He also has the point of a safe/strong room with is AWESOME in the day of gun assaults--It doubles as storm shelter and a place to lock up more than will fit in a safe. If you have old historic windows everything out there is slanting why to keep or replace them. Wulfinghoff really does give the straight up on the problems ALL windows have along with the various options and the REAL truth--that there just isn't a good window insulator because they all create condensation that causes rot and mildew. He tried to make his own and failed so says be prepared to have heat source under each window or else... There is just SO much good honest evaluation and tips to think when designing a place that this rocks. I've built 2 houses and flipped 6. I thought I had most of the bases covered until I got this on interlibrary loan. I was sold in 2 days that I had to have my own copy!