About this book

Mission

DIY Solar Book is a free field manual for people who want to heat, cool, and power a home with the sun. Conservation comes first, then collectors, water, passive design, and electricity. The voice is a workshop notebook: measurements, materials, and the reason a detail exists. There are no accounts and no ads. You can read every guide from the page.

Where the topic list came from

The list of topics was inspired by builditsolar.com, a long-running collection of home-built solar projects by Gary Reysa. This book does not copy that site. The guides here are original writing from general engineering practice. A further-reading link is a citation, not a reprint.

Originality

Text, titles, diagrams, and photos are written or drawn for this book. They are not copied from builditsolar.com or from any other site. Linking out for further reading is fine. Hotlinking or reusing someone else's images is not.

A check in this repository fails the build if a denylisted phrase shows up in a guide, or if an image source points at builditsolar.com. The about page is the one place allowed to name the person and the site that inspired the outline. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before you add a guide.

License

The guides on this site, and the diagrams drawn for them, are under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. You may share and adapt them, including commercially, if you give credit, link the license, and note changes.

The book edition is different. Its layout, page and cover design, and the material made for it that is not on this site, such as added chapters, worksheets, photographs, and video, are all rights reserved. Guide text that also appears in the book stays under CC BY 4.0, and versions of the book preview published before 17 October 2026 remain under CC BY 4.0. Ask at the contact page for permission to reuse anything reserved.

The DIY Solar Book name, mark, and cover designs identify this project and are not licensed for reuse. If you share a guide, credit it, but do not present your copy as this book. The software that publishes the site is under the MIT license. Details are in LICENSE-CONTENT and LICENSE.

What a guide contains

A finished guide has a materials list, a cost estimate, a difficulty rating, numbered steps, at least one diagram, a safety note, and further reading. It should also say what the project will not do.

Not a substitute for a licensed trade

These pages are general education. They are not a building permit, a structural design, or an electrical license. Roofs, combustion appliances, pressurized plumbing, and mains wiring have local rules. Read the safety disclaimer before you build, and hire the person who is allowed to sign the work when the job requires one.

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