House building has been on my mind a lot lately. Mostly from helping with my parent’s house, but also from some research I’ve read about sustainable building practices, and lectures I have attended. I love all things innovative and green, but building is a fun way to release aggression too. My parents were the first to peak my interest in green-building. Initially they wanted to build a straw bale house on their property, which would have been significantly more energy efficient. Unfortunately, because the practice is still not well known, they couldn’t get loans to build a straw bale house. It strikes me as particularly strange because of the fact that the area they are building in is notorious for wildfires, and straw bale houses are more fire-resistant than regular houses are. So the house they are building now is not all that eco-friendly, and at 4,000 sq. ft. it’s not off to a good start. They have radiant heat floors , but that is about it. Their main complaint about building an eco-friendly house is that it costs too much. Which from my perspective right now is true, everything that touts environmental savvy does seem to be nearly four times the price. So I am planning to research new ways to design a house to help my parents keep costs low and reduce their footprint. At a recent lecture on being green and keeping it local, I listened to a speaker from Bergey Windpower . His suggestions for “greening” your home were interesting. Bergey produces wind turbines that offset the use of electricity. However, at $30,000 for a 10,000 watt generator, they are not entirely cost efficient in the short-term. That may all change in the near-future, but there are other ways to increase energy efficiency in your home as well. One suggestion made by the Bergey representative was to weatherize your home. This inclides buying better windows, and using lots of caulk to seal holes where heating and air can escape, and making sure that there is good insulation in the walls.
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Buiding an Eco-Friendly House
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