On Mon, 10 May 2004 01:09:49 +0900, you wrote: >>I have exciting news to share. Today we closed on our off >>grid home in 5 acres of woods. PV, Wind, Rain Water filled Cistern, >>Veggie Oil powered VW Rabbit generator, wood heat, etc. Paradise! I >>will be sharing photo's and construction articles as we expand and >>improve our little slice of heaven. Expansion of the rain >>harvester/cistern, and solar water heater with wood backup is the >>first order of business. >> >>Steve Spence >>http://www.green-trust.org > >Congratulations Steve! What you've wanted for so long. > >Best wishes > >Keith
That sounds like a serious score. Enough acreage to stretch his wings in a number of ways, and more progressive technologies than I imagine usually come with almost any house, even one lived in by open-minded sustainably-minded progressive people. When I bought my place (which in a number of ways does not meet the level of score that he made) I found that it was somewhat hard to find such a place, and to get realtors even to make me aware of them. Even something as simple as getting home insurance with good credit can be difficult for a home that is not cut from the usual cloth. I live in a fire-prone area where everyone is allegedly concerned to mitigate risk, and the risk affects all of us, and yet even though I went well out of my way to buy one of the most fire-resistant homes in the State, the insurance companies just on general principle were of a mind to reject what was different or unknown to them. It is a myth, in my view, that the capitalistic process works perfectly in this sense to encourage construction of items less likely to result in an insurance payout. Anyway, back to the point, for folks who know in their hearts that they want to make their home purchase consistent, if possible, with some of their sustainability efforts, I encourage them to insist on their goals. They may meet a lot of resistance that may cause them to doubt themselves. Forewarned is fore-armed, so I am passing on (i.e.: warning) that many many people in the real estate business and others, up to and including folks who have some mind and awareness and enthusiasm for sustainability issues, will discourage you from buying a ready-made home along the lines of what you've decided you want (and there is plenty of variance amongst sustainably-minded people as to what they want.... everything from materials to shape to features is up for debate). You can build your own, which I did not do, but I have the feeling that in a large percentage of cases, this turns out to be a longer haul (both financially and emotionally) than the owners allow themselves to be aware of when they first get into it. This is not to discourage such an impulse... (in fact with a sustainable technology type home, I think it may sometimes be the only way, and I think this particular decision is *very* individual-situation dependent) but to lay out some of what I encountered. All in all I'm extremely pleased that I insisted on things to be my way, and not the way I was told it was normally done, and it looks to me like we could be hearing a lot from Steve, along the same lines. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
