The Year-Round Solar Greenhouse

Lindsey Schiller studied conventional greenhouse design and management at the University of Arizona's Controlled Environmental Agriculture Center before delving deeply into solar greenhouse design. With co-author Marc Plinke, she founded Ceres Greenhouse Solutions to research, design and build energy-efficient year-round greenhouses. Lindsey has designed, toured and helped build hundreds of energy-efficient greenhouses spanning small residential structures to acre-size commercial facilities. Marc Plinke, an inventor-innovator with a PhD in engineering, started his career as a chemical and process engineer working for Gore Technologies. He later retrofitted his family's 1950's Boulder, CO ranch home into a net-zero-energy home, spurring a second career in green building design. Marc has spent the past decade applying his expertise in green building and engineering mindset to building better greenhouses, with the intention of enabling people to grow their own food sustainably, year-round.

Introduction

Section I: The Big Picture
1. What Is a Solar Greenhouse?
2. Growing Indoors: History and Future Trends
3. Planning for the Greenhouse

Section II: Designing and Building a Solar Greenhouse
4. Siting and Orientation
5. Controlling Light and Heat Gain: Glazing
6. Controlling Heat Loss: Insulation
7. Ventilation
8. Greenhouse Geometries
9. Greenhouse Construction Basics
10. Attached Greenhouses
11. Earth-sheltered Greenhouses

Section III: Heating and Cooling Methods
12. Passive Thermal Mass
13. Using the Earth for Heat Storage
14. Solar Hot Water
15. Rocket Mass Stoves and Compost Heaters
16. Powering the Greenhouse

Section IV: Growing in the Greenhouse
17. Creating the Greenhouse Environment
18. Aquaponics and Hydroponics

Appendix 1: Temperature Ranges of Common Greenhouse Crops
Appendix 2: Optimizing Glazing Angles
Appendix 3: Supplemental Lighting

Index
About the Authors
A Note About the Publisher