Hello, everyone.
My husband and I are planning for our retirement in 2 years. We are just starting to gather information on post & beam houses. Not fancy, but open and organized. We’re interested in envirolet toilets, solar heat, skylites, outdoor wood furnace, wood-burning cookstove, etc.
As you can see, we’re hoping to be as kind to our environment as possible, within our budget.
We would really appreciate any ideas, experiences, etc. you might have to share.
Thanks for reading this. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
Replies
the best thing you can do, if your already havent, is to read,read, read whatever you can on timberframes & timberframing so that you will be an informed customer. I am planning an addition to my home and am looking at a timberframe...have spent many hours reading books, magazines, and internet searches to get myself more familiar with the termonology and pro's/con's of this system...this way you wont get snooker'd when you start looking for someone to build it for you!
Lindy,
I'd suggest you contact Real Goods and get copies of both their 'regular' catalog and their solar catalog. The prices on solar can be a real eye-opener. But, they also have a good library of books available on such topics as passive solar (which is affordably built but needs to be planned from the start), composting toilets, and a host of other offbeat, interesting items.
Good luck with your project.
Amy
Thank you for all your input.
We've already done some research on solar heating, etc. and you're not kidding about the cost! But, we're wondering if, over a period of ten years or so, it would be money well invested. One thing to consider is the problem Hydro is having just trying to keep up with today's demands. The days of never-ending hydro may soon be coming to a halt!
One thing to consider when amortizing the cost is whether the solar panels will last those 10 years. As I understand it they tend to wear out such that solar energy is still more expensive than buying power off the grid is today over the life of the system. Additionally, the appliance bill is much higher because most modern day appliances aren't suited to solar energy (not enough power), so you need to buy special appliances to go with it.
But that doesn't mean that solar energy will always be more expensive, and of course you are being easier on the environment. Depending on where you are building, you might also consider wind as an alternative energy source. And for heating, I've heard good things about geothermal heat pumps. These aren't exactly what they sound like - you don't need to live in Yellowstone for them to work, but you do need to be able to dig a deep hole, so it won't work if your property is sitting on bedrock 4 feet under the topsoil.
Now, you've REALLY got our attention!
We had never heard about special appliances being required due to less energy. Do you know where I can find out more about this?
We're looking into geothermal heating and cooling.
Thanks, again.
Lindy, keep us posted on your geothermal research. This is a very interesting development. My church had a fire in December and in planning our re-build we are looking into geothermal heating and cooling for our Religious Education building and our Meeting House. We were discussing getting the insurance to replace all six of the furnaces that were clogged with smoke and ash during the fire and one elderly lady stood up and told us about the geothermal system she had installed in a house in southern Maryland--within a week our architecht came back with a figure saying that the system will pay for itself in 20 years if energy costs remain steady, but at the rate they are increasing we're looking at t ten-year return on our investment. the installation costs are high, but the electrical costs for circulating the system are low.