This book covers technologies, from materials to computers, that are exerting a profound effect on the design and operation of buildings. Many examples are presented and solved to reinforce important concepts and software applications are integrated throughout. This edition has been expanded to include a chapter on economic analysis and optimization, new heating and cooling load procedures, more than 200 new homework problems, and new and simplified procedures for ground coupling heat transfer calculations. Many of the appendices from the first edition have been moved to the accompanying CD-ROM, which amounts to a searchable database of tables, charts and information on building codes. For example, there are more than 1,000 tables in the electronic appendices that can be searched by major categories, a table list, or an index of topics. The CD also directs students to the central web site where several hundred links are maintained to help students find manufacturer and government data, browse in newsgroups and find any corrections or updates to the text and date tables.