Finding home architects that specialize in energy efficient homes?

[gruhn]

Hooray!

[3D Peruna]

Your situation is unique and therefore not applicable to the guy who needs about 50' of wiring from the grid. In fact, it's still extraordinary. "Sometimes" makes economic sense is too rare and only applies in situations like yours, which are rare even today.

[Kris Krieger]

Derek Broughton wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I thought a Realtor's job was, and always has been, to SELL homes. Selling implies a lot more than just sticking a sign on the lawn - it involves pointing out the advantages, not just letting perceived or possible disadvantages be emphasized.

As an analogy - when we were still looking to buy, one house has this ghastly polychromic paisley-type Peter-Max-ish wallpaper in the bathroom - we walked in, and she said, "And they put this bright festive wallpaper in to cheer up the space!" We had to laugh - but at least she laughed with us. But the story makes a point - you don't SELL a place by telling the potential buyers, "Oh and here is this utterly atrocious wallpaper that makes you go half blind if you look at it for more than three seconds".

It's like a job interview. Sure, the interviewer is eventually goign to get around to some tricky or difficulat questions ("Why did you leasve oyur last job?", "What are your faults?", "What did you dislike about your last supervisor?"), but the thing is to find a way to end on a positive statement. I left my last job because I wanted to explore opportunities in this area of my field. My main fault is that I can sometimes get too wrapped up in details, but I've found that good planning helps me avoid that and use my eye for detail to advantage, such as in reviewing quality control documents. It wasn't that I didn't like my last supervisor so much as I'm a learning oriented-person who enjoys new challenges, and my supervisor's position didn't allow him to grant employees those opportunities, so it was stressful for him to deal with employee's frustrations over that.

Only a dope would say: "I left my last job because it sucked, I don't think I have any faults, I didn't like my last supervisor because he was a stupid jerk"!

A job interview is "selling yourself", realty is selling property. But same principle.

So what could be some possible advantages of a Green house? Here's a possibility: "It's custom-built to exacting specifications, using high-quality materials, so not only will your gas and electric bills be incredibly low, but also, you won't rack up huge maintenance or repair bills because, at the most, the place might require just some basic and inexpensive maintenance, but that'd be a couple years down the road."

Then one can follow through with: "It's ideal for people who want to express their individuality through their home. Some poeple are a little fearful of buying something this unique, but it's almost like living in a work of art - it *is* unique, it *is* individual, it *does* stand out from the average common home - it tell others that interesting people live here."

"And the bonus is that it's environmentally friendly!"

And so on. Of course not every place appeals to every buyer - as I always say, One size *doesn't* fit all. But so what? That doesn't mean you ignore it, or tell buyers "well this is kind of weird and ugly but I guess we can at least drive by, see what you think of that thing." When someone says that (and I did have a realtor say something like that to me once, a couple years ago), it's too late to find out what most people think - they already have a negative preconception and they're primed to say "Eeeew, yuck!" when they see the place. Selling is, in large part, about giving potential buyers a *positive* precenception. THat's why it's good to wear a suit and clean presseed shirt, etc., to job interviews - you're trying to sell yourself to the potential employer and you want to make a good, positive first impression, in the hope fo planting a positive preconception in the interviewer's mind.

It's *of course* true that it all has to be backed by facts, but facts in and of themselves are not sufficient.

- Kris

[wmbjk]

Actually, $10,000 grid hookups are hardly rare. Even a 5 acre parcel with power to the property line can be expensive to connect. Some utilities are generous with their existing ratepayers' money and charge peanuts for new installs. Others expect the new customer to foot the entire bill, which is a startling concept for the cradle-to-grave types. Most people don't have a clue about how much the builder or developer originally paid for their installation. But even of those needing expensive hookups, most will opt for the grid regardless. The tipping point might be $5k in some areas, $50k in others.

Not too far from me is a development of 40 acre parcels that's 150 square miles, and the grid is some miles from the edge. Property owners there would get a chuckle out of claims that off-grid power is "extraordinary". Such developments aren't rare either, there are a lot of them here in AZ. Except when new homes are clustered (which would be contrary to the concept), average wire requirement for each building sites might be 1/2 mile *if* they were all developed at the same time. But they won't be, so the earliest builders will need as much as 30, and in the best case some of the later ones might average

1. There's seldom an opportunity for more than a couple of owners to even share costs. So in these areas its the grid that's rare now, and it probably always will be.

Wayne

[Kris Krieger]

3D Peruna wrote in news:mAKKe.3848$ [e-mail]:

One drawback has always been aesthetic. Mounted solar panels look ugly, which is what first turns poeple off to the idea of solar.

There is a new, thin, flexible solar panel that doesn't require mounting, it's in a polymer sheet, I think it was under 1/2" thick. You can just put that puppy right onto a roof, or pretty much any surface; it's also *very* efficient in low light, where regular solar fails. It's a bit less efficient in full midday light on cloudless days - but in the final average, more efficient overall.

I saw it on that show Alan ALda "hosts", I think Scientific American Frontiers", but I'm sure I also saw it online, it was just a number of months ago.

If I remember correctly, it's also rahter less expensive than traditional solar.

Why it isn't being pushed/marketed...? Heh, not while Big Oil is running the nation. There are very powerful people who *don't want* highly- efficient solar power easily and relatively inexpensively available. Product availability, but most especially, *product marketing*, does not operate in a sociopolitical vacuum.

I dunno about "vastly conspiratorial", but IMO it's extremely naive to not realize that there is a lot of money (hence a lot of political and economic decision-making power) behind the oil industry. THere are also a lot of jobs therein. One could argue that the jobs would simply shift to the new technology arenas, but the people currently in those older jobs might not be able to learn how to work in the new technology.

So, there is a lot of inertia there, a lot of people have a stake in conserving the status quo re: solar - i.e., keeping it limited to "the weird fringies", and the traditional products for "normal average everyday folks".

Photoshythesis is a very complex process - the chlorophyll molecule is a long chain capped by - oy, it's been like 20 years - I *think* a porphyrin structure - some sort of rign, at any rate. It has a coresspondingly complex charge profile along its length. That charge profile is what creates the energy cascade (meaning, the exchange of electrons between several differnt molecules that results in a net gain of energy which the plant can then apply to converting C H and O into complex carbohydrates such as cellulose).

I'd have to crackout my biology and botany texts to offer anything resembling any detail, but that's the quick'n'dirty version. Living systems are generally extremely complex - although one process might be simple, no biological process occurs separately from the system as a whole, so, the replication of a process can turn out to be much more difficult than was first anticipated.

So what?

- Kris

[Kris Krieger]

"daestrom" wrote in news:UsOKe.7456$ [e-mail]:

[ ... ]

Heh, I *wish* I could do math. I can struggle though some basic geometry and otehr such stuff that I use when I'm modeling something, and I hacked my way through some JavaScript but am mostly just one who adapts available scripts to do what I wan to have done.

I canlearn, to at least an average level ofproficiency, pretty much anything I put my mind to, but no matter how many times I've gone back to Calculus, it simply will not stick in my brain. It's so irritating.

If "God is in the details", the problem is: So is the highway madness =8-O

;)

- Kris

[Anthony Matonak]

Kris Krieger wrote: ...

Aesthetics is hardly the reason why people are turned off solar. Mounted panels can look quite attractive on a house if installed with even the slightest care to appearances. Certainly they are no more ugly than any of a wide variety of tacky lawn ornaments or poorly chosen paint colors.

What turns people off is cost and performance. It's very expensive and won't perform very well in high density housing tracts where one property is shaded by buildings or trees on the neighboring lots. Getting one's neighbor to take down a beloved tree or their office building is very difficult.

It's not that new and it's not that efficient. It's an amorphous PV technology and runs about half the efficiency of other PV cells. You would do better advocating PV which is integrated with roofing products like tiles and steel panels. These become part of the structure and, unless you know how to look, they do not appear to be PV panels.

I would be surprised if it were less expensive. Perhaps you could show us some price comparisons?

Perhaps it IS being pushed and marketed but it's not as good a product?

Anthony

[no_child_left_unleashed]

stick > in my brain

I'm holding 17,000 resumes from India & China. Folks who mastered calculus the first time around. And they're willing to work for 25% of what you're getting.

Maybe you can emigrate to Fukian Province and work in their factory cafeteria, loading the used chopsticks into the dishwasher.

[no_child_left_unleashed]

wastefulness is ugly. Self-sufficiency is gorgeous. That is what turns people off to solar... the terrifying prospect of being RESPONSIBLE.

there *is* no one running the USA, and that is the problem. Singapore has a government that actually has its hands on the steering wheel. They don't get 100% of the turns executed correctly, but 90% will do. In the USA, no one is driving the bus.

there were powerful people who didn't want the Saving-and-Loans to melt down, but no one in the USA is powerful enough to buck the market, nor to buck the will of the people. Retract the last clause... no one in the USA is willing to *do* anything for improvement - especially if it would require them to get up out of their chair. Everyone wants to supervise, or just kibitz.

completely wrong. Less than 1% of the people have enough emotional strength to make ANYTHING happen. 49% of the people only watch it happen. And 50% of the people don't even know anything is happening.... they're too busy partying at NASCAR races, or throwing paint on the fur coat of celebrities, or being a Mommy. Being a mommy is so emotionally satisfying... you get to play Boss of the Family, and it's the last place in the landscape where no license is required before creating a public nuisance.

posterboy of the celebrity-trumps-accomplishment folks. Go back to watching TV. I invented it to ensure that dullards like you would be perpetually tranquilized.... too drugged to engage in Capital Formation, or in Resource Allocation & Management.

I'm a dipshit asshole, but since I've got one working eye, I am fated to control the blind masses like a musher controls his dogs.

Try to guard your health.... worker-dogs can earn a certain amount of maintenance, but once the Vet bills become higher than the value of the work we can extract from you, that's when the offshore-outsourcing consultant starts receiving urgent faxes.

[Derek Broughton]

It's hardly semantics. You're wrong.

Lousy example. Try $3500 for a collector, $1000 for the blanket (hmmm - I got one for free), $3500 for a heater (probably much less, because you won't need such a large heater), and MUCH less than $300/month for fuel. This is _exactly_ a case where solar pays for itself. It should pay for itself in two years, at most. Frankly, I think you're wusses if you think a Florida pool needs heating in the winter, but I swim in June in Nova Scotia. Nobody needs 80F to swim - my 77 year old mother swims a mile a day, and prefers the temperature under 75.

The "lives"? Your pool is a life-changing experience? You need to get one.

[islandgirl]

So true. Many people after visiting here (US Virgin Islands) decide to move and have to live on the water (beach/shore). What they don't realize is that the interior and furnishings are never going to feel dry, or stay dry. With the nearly constant trade winds you have a good deal of humidity and salt spray from the water.

They'll have to keep the doors and windows closed, and run air conditioning to feel comfortable (as in not feeling like they are going to mold if they stand still too long). Then there is the corrosion factor and it gets worse as you get close to the water.

Chris

[islandgirl]

Electricity in the US Virgin Islands is expensive that I'm going solar/wind when I finally build. To tie into the grid, and it would be a max of 3 poles, would cost a minimum of $3,000. First pole is free, and each additional pole is $1,500.

Now to add that my lot in not on the water but I do have a view of the Caribbean.

With the cost of electricity I estimate that my system will pay for itself in about 10 years.

[gruhn]

And there's no need to listen to the people who tell you that "pay for itself" is the only criteria.

[John Beardmore]

In message , [e-mail] writes

This may be so, but it doesn't mean their reserves are infinite !

Cheers, J/.

[Kris Krieger]

"Don" wrote in news:8P9Le.7230$ [e-mail]:

...and when CocaCola actually tasted like COLA... Gadzooks, I'm an Olf Fogey =:-o !

New thesis: "Pollyannaism in a Rapidly Decaying World"

- K.

[Kris Krieger]

Anthony Matonak wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Certainly not all but it's a comment I've heard a lot from people I've known (when the topic came up about solar power). It might be more of a "final straw", tho' i don;t know. It's just what I've personally hear people say (not that I know everyone in the world )

I'm sure there are ways to handle them well, in terms of appearance. "But that costs more..."

Ugh, lawn ornaments and colors etc. - all I can say is, there are reasons why people form Neiaghborhood Taste Police Committees. ((THen you get the Edsel - ugh...goes round and round...making me dizzy....qeuasy...blurrrrrp....))

Yeah, there *is* that...

Oh! Ok. GLad you told me...

THat sounds like a good idea. How do they perform as *roofing* materials? If they do both well, then at least you also get a decent roof out of the deal.

As I'd mentioned, I saw it on Scientific American Frontiers. No hard numbers - I just seem to remember - which means, I am not sure and can be mistaken - they just said it was.

Probably, possibly, I dunno - it's a point of curiosity to me.

- Kris

[Kris Krieger]

no_child_left [e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

What the F*...?

My reply:

- K.

[P. Fritz]

I've got two neighbors that take the cake for tacky..........I'll try to post some pics in the next day or two.

[Derek Broughton]

In any case, if they were selling a million barrels for $40/bbl and end up only selling 500,000 barrels for $80, then their profit goes up by the cost of producing 500,000 barrels. They'll keep making their profit no matter what the cost goes to - when we have cheaper _energy_ alternatives, we'll still need to create plastics.

[Kris Krieger]

"Don" wrote in news:X87Me.8176$ [e-mail]:

Pink flamingoes are OK, they're iconic

Gnomes - well, they aren't my style but IMO, you ought to have the right to have 'em... ...and to be honest, I prefer those to the oft-approved fake and cheesy- looking "tudor half timbers" that get slapped onto otherwise average suburban tract-houses to "make them 'Tudor'". THey're especially "attractive" when they start to warp and come away from the siding.

I do, tho', have an aesthetic objection to pink houses with purple shutters...but more of an objection to junked cars piled in the front yard.

OTOH the neighborhood Brown Shirts "forbid" me from putting up snay sort of solar-reduction film on my (rental house) windows. Too bad they also refuse to pay my increased energy bills (and replace the AC unit with one that can keep up with the total lack of insulation and the old single-pane windows...)

So if your having garden gnomes means I can also put up my solar block film and replace the nasty crabgrass ("St. Augistine Grass") with a cultivar of Buffalo Grass (native grass with cultivars that need no mowing because they only get to 4" tall), then by all means, have the gnomes

- Kris