Ken Kern Quotes

“Ceiling insulation is... preferable to roof-top insulation.”

“The first principle of good barn design is flexibility of space.”

“Pit Greenhouses... greenhouse plants... need additional sources of carbon dioxide.”

“Bedroom insulation is unnecessary and restrictive of optimum summer sleeping comfort.”

“Most houses grossly violate the basic principles of natural summer cooling and sound winter heating.”

“The design of a house around a massive, central fireplace has, somehow, always felt right to this writer-builder.”

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

“Every house needs a warming spot where persons coming in from the outside chill can, if for no other reason, warm hands and hearts.”

“As much as 70 percent of the sun's heat rays can be reflected from one's house by the installation of a white or light-colored roof.”

“It costs three to five times as much to remove a BTU of heat from a house in the summer as it does to add one BTU of heat in the winter.”

“Grafting is, in effect, the healing of two common wounds. Commercial nurseries charge high prices for grafted stock, and the public bears the cost...”

“When replacement or repair is required due either to accident or deterioration by age, the materials are readily at hand, and the householder himself can do the work.”

“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.”

“Convected air heating requires 70° air temperatures, whereas 65° are required using a radiative means of heating. The result is a 30% savings in fuel consumption.”

“Cooling systems... need only supply a drop of from 10 to 20 degrees below that of the outside temperature. ...greater cooling differentials... are a real injury to health.”

“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...”

“A mixture of damp peat moss and loamy soil spread around the roots is far better than fertilizer in any form. Do not saturate the hole in which a tree is to be planted with water.”

“Trellises for leafy vines, which will lose their foilage in the fall, should be set up over southern windows so that sunlight will penetrate into the house through the winter months.”

“The mere technical problems of building a home are insignificant when compared to an understanding and an interpretation of one's innermost feelings and thoughts concerning his shelter needs.”

“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.”