. . . and he built a solar house
by Matthew Lieber Buchman
actually: They built a solar home
Over the 10
months (Oct '01 - Aug '02) from concept to completion of our
solar-powered home, I kept thinking of Robert
Heinlein's short story "...and he built a crooked house." (Being a
SF/fantasy author may have something to do with it I confess.) We set
out much like his architect/hero, Quintus Teal, to build something
moderately absurd.
Okay, he built a tesseract and we just built with solar-power, but we
did it in an area with reliable (mostly),
very cheap electricity (it is wet in the Pacific NW after all and we
know this and have put up large dams). We only pay about $.06/kWh;
that's cheap. Further, we designed a very efficient home, within the
parameters of conventional construction, and cut no corners on
appliances, lights, laptops rather than desktops, etc. So we needed
very little energy anyway.
So why did we do it? Here are a few of our reasons:
· lower bills in old age: We've made our energy investment
up front.
· consider the hidden costs of subsidized power both to the
taxpayer and to the environment. Check out the latest news on nuclear
waste, coal burning, strip mining, dams . . . it gets depressing.
· there is a high cost in wasted energy to transport it from
the generation source to the user.
· solar & wind energy are generated at the point of
usage.
· solar & wind equipment pay of their "environmental
impact to construct" costs in 3-4 years according to most calculations,
everything after that is generated at no "environmental expense."
· one of the most fun things I've ever seen was my meter
running backwards as I supplied my meager
excess generated electricity to the grid. Regrettably when the net
meter was installed, I lost this joy as it is an electronic rather than
a mechanical device now.
· we want to walk lightly upon the Earth.
· need I continue?
I hope that you find some of this information useful. Please feel free
to email me any questions you may have.
ENJOY
