Ken Kern Quotes

47 Sourced Quotes

You can make any whole and dried bean, pea, or grain sprout in several days, without purchasing a seed sprouter to do the job. Use the common, wide-mouthed quart canning jar...

Ken Kern
A perfectly flat roof permits up to 50 percent more heat gain that a pitched roof... This illustrates the failure of the flat-roof construction to get natural, hot air flow out from under the eaves.

Ken Kern
About one-fifth of all the heat that enters the average house comes through windows.... external shading is by far the most efficient method for controlling interior heat build-up. The air-wash between the shading screen and the window is also very effective. The screen should have a light-colored finish... Insulation boards placed next to the window pane at night, will help prevent heat losses through glazed openings. Overhangs and horizontal sunshades placed above south-facing windows serve effectively as heat reducers.

Ken Kern
If no attempt is made to control excessive heat loss through glass... a solar house may require as much as 20 percent more fuel than an orthodox house during December and January... Wendell Thomas recognized and solved this problem... by burying the house in the ground, except for the south and east window areas.... at night... windows are covered with from inside by insulation boards and drapes...

Ken Kern
An important feature of our barrel stove was its simplicity. We designed it so that any homesteader, even one only partially skilled in metalworking, could build the entire unit in a welder-equipped workshop. Our stove's low cost and multiuse features contributed to its modest success.

Ken Kern
It is no mystery that clay cook pots perform as they do or that clay ovens are considered healthy devices for us to use. In prehistoric times, baking ovens were built of clay and sand. Later these stoves were placed inside shelters where they could deliver some of their accumulated heat to the household...

Ken Kern
Cooling by evaporation of water or by fans and warming by heaters and fireplaces are artificial aids... From a practical, economic, or aesthetic point of view it makes much more sense to develop, where possible, constructional features for warming or cooling the owner-built home.

Ken Kern
The most noteworthy development of the open fireplace took place in 1796, when Englishman Count Rumford published his comprehensive essay, "Chimney Fireplaces."... the inclined fireback... increased fireplace efficiency by providing an area of greater radiation. For the purpose of breaking up the current of smoke in the event of chimney down draft, the back smoke shelf of Rumford's improved fireplace ended abruptly—a practice strictly adhered to by fireplace masons to this day.

Ken Kern
A few centuries ago... the indigenous and often primitive architectural forms of that time had become suited to local climate through a long process of trial and error.

Ken Kern
Supplies of wood fuel may be a byproduct of thinning, pruning, and harvesting homestead tree crops. These trees also provide the homestead with groundwater [for natural evaporative cooling and fruit], with protection from the sun, wind, and erosion, and with fodder, fruit, and nuts for animal and human consumption. Tree crops also furnish shelter and forage for the wild birds...

Ken Kern
As far back as 1624... Louis Savot invented the first heat-circulating fireplace. His unit was installed in the Louvre, Paris, and became the prototype for Ben Franklin's 1742 Pennsylvania stove. The 1624 French fireplace achieved 30 to 45 percent more efficiency than do most American tract home fireplaces of today! Savot surrounded the grate of his creation with a metal chamber, which had warm air outlets above the fire opening. He also supplied the fire with air from under the floor. Thus, room drafts were reduced and combustion efficiency was further improved. Few people are aware that practically all of the technical features of Franklin's Pennsylvania stove were copied from earlier inventors.

Ken Kern
Enough is known today about natural ventilation for summer cooling to warrant the entire replacement of artificial air-conditioning devices.... prevailing breezes enter small, louvered openings at the lower section... circulate across the "living zone," rise and then exit through larger, higher openings in the opposite wall.

Ken Kern
The Arab's tent... actually consists of two separate tents. The outer tent is white and acts as a heat-reflective layer. The lower-inner tent additionally protects... by providing a blanket of moving air between the two tent layers.... this tent system also illustrates the two, most basic principles of summer cooling: reflective insulation and ventilation.... One system must supplement and reinforce the other.

Ken Kern
Heat from a centrally located masonry stove is transferred to all parts of the living space by steady radiation. Therefore, stove operating temperatures never fluctuate erratically, causing harmful air-turbulance. This makes for a more healthful indoor climate.

Ken Kern
It must have been in Iran that Frank Lloyd Wright got his brilliant idea for cooling a house... During the summer months, the sunken fireplace hearth was filled with water. Down-draft air movement from the chimney circulates over this pool to cool... This unusual fireplace has a summer-cooling as well as winter-heating function.

Ken Kern
Glass... is not required for the collection of solar heat. The National Physical Laboratory of Israel... has perfected a highly polished metal surface coated with a molecular-thin black layer of special paint, which absorbs more than 90 percent sunlight. The polished metal radiates very little of the heat it receives.... A south-facing wall fitted out with these plates would really "drink in" solar heat, windows, or no windows.

Ken Kern
A trailer can virtually double the loading capacity of a sturdy truck—another good reason for beefing up the power train.

Ken Kern