The Heat Vault — Furnace-Free Heating That Pays for Itself (Volume I)

The heating methods that kept homes warm for centuries before the furnace — rebuilt for the house you own today, and proven with the payback math to the dollar. The Heat Vault shows you how to heat with the sun, the earth, thermal mass, and a small, clean fire, starting with the envelope upgrades that make everything else cheaper.

Inside: passive solar design and thermal mass, solar air collectors, earth tubes and earth sheltering, rocket mass heaters, masonry heaters, and modern wood stoves — each ending with a plain-spoken "Sketchy or Solid?" verdict, because our job is sorting the genuinely sketchy from the merely forgotten.

New in this edition: The Payback Vault — five chapters of nothing but money. Calculate your home's real heat loss, compare every fuel per delivered BTU, follow eight fully worked payback calculations (air-sealing pays back in one winter; a wood stove saves $1,175–$1,900 a year), and watch a ten-year case study turn $7,850 of upgrades into $12,000 of net savings. Worksheets included so you can re-run every number with your own prices.

68 pages, fully illustrated with original diagrams, climate playbook, safety chapter, and a staged plan. Written by Bas Beckers.