Ok, so I have been reading articles about building a home and living "off the grid" a.k.a. being independent or mostly independent of public energy/city energy. Sounds like a great, right?
I thought it was, anyway. So I went looking around at the different ideas people had for living "off the grid." There were several, but I narrowed it down to 2 examples that I felt represented the better and the worse of home designs. So I will present them both, for your pleasure.
Contestant 1 - this website very quickly turned me off to their product. I know, I am a biased person when it comes to "crazy hippie ideas". The sell for this was very hippie. Instead of selling their product, it felt like they were trying to sell their ideology, and I gotta say, I wasn't buying. I was very quickly turned off, and so didn't really give it a chance. But in my defense, image is everything in marketing, isn't it? And really, the steps to making one of these homes reminded me a little of a scam, or a cult. You have to pay increasing amounts of money to advance up the steps to making one of these homes. So really, this was one of the worse examples of "off the grid" homes.
Contestant 2 - this website was not a true selling website, so it immediately was a step up from the others. Now, I know it's kinda like apples to oranges (comparing Contestant 1 and Contestant 2), but too bad. The how-to style was more approachable, I felt. Further, the style was super-cool (I am a nerd, after all). There were no steps you had to surmount, but then again, it wasn't trying to sell you blueprints. I dunno, it seemed more helpful to me to see an informative website than a persuasive website. So I liked this, and felt that it was one of the better examples of "off the grid" houses.
So what do you think? Which, if any, would you do? Or is there another one that catches your fancy... I know that this post is full of eco-friendly ideas, but this is not an opening for you to push your crazy bring-you-own-bag-to-the-grocery-store ideas. (Ahem, Crystal, Ahem).
And Jason, update. Post. Allakhazam. Alohomora? Allakadabra? :waves a wand: Where's the cloud of smoke?
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3 comments:
How about these...
http://www.monolithic.com/gallery/homes/google/index.html
I like these better, and how much cooler would they be if they were eco-friendly as well...
:D
Okay... Hippy Ideas aside, what are you going for? Are you looking for a 'stand alone' independant home? Are you looking for 'eco friendly' living? Furturistic living? Alternative living?
I mean if you want to build a cheap home about $20,000 you can do it out of mud bricks and it retains heat well and cool fairly well too. I watched a thingy on it one time, use mud, dung and straw and you can make yourself a cheap house that in the end doesn't stink and last a long time for super cheap. (and its eco friendly... but any way)
If you want your house to function with little to no outside power you can look at solar, wind and water power that drastically reduce power consumption and in some cases produces -extra- power. Most of these things have a high initial cost for instal and purchas but generally pay off in the long run. Some are eco frindly and some are not.
Or you can do small things like build your water tank ontop of your house (like they do here) so the sun heats the metal tank most of the time and you don't use a water heater. Or using an on demand water heater can save quite a bit on your energy bill too as opposed to a traditional model. Radiant heating is supposed to be more efficent that traditional heating. Better insulation can save you tons on your energy bill and so can properly venting your attic or roof. Small things can go a long way to avoiding using as much outside energy but you still need outside energy.
Then there are things like are you looking to be eco friendly in design and such (are you?). The use of highly renewable bamboo as a floor option is something many people are switching to instead of traditional hard woods. There are eco friendly paints out there and many are in vibrant colors and are fade resistant. But I don't think thats what concerns you.
You just looking for space efficient? Look no further than the Japanese who have convyer belt garages that work like ferris wheels to save space. They have some awesome space saving designs so you get the most bang for your buck.
What I am saying is... how about you specify what our looking for exactally... there are TONS of options out there. I need better questions to make better informative statements.
If you just want to know about my personal dream home... well... I like small Japanese style and eco friendly ::wink:: but we all already knew that.
Is my comment longer than your post yet? I don't want to loose my title as comment whore...
Crystal... a comment whore??? Never.... ;)
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