Going Green At School

Yesterday’s entry talked about a huge new house and some of its greener features. On a side note: we had to park at a local school and walk down to the house. The school where we parked is Turkeyfoot Middle School and it has a lot of solar panels!

In 2010 it was remodeled and at the time it was the 3^rd most eco-friendly building in the nation. It is cool sometimes to see how green things are close by and it gives me hope that we can continue on our path of making a better world.

Opulent And Efficient

There is a home show going on where builders of new homes open them up to the public and allow us to walk through them and oh and ah. I live in a tiny house but I really like my little house. It could stand to be more efficient in many ways and there are a lot of improvements that we could throw into it if we ever save up the money.  Going to a show like this, for me, satisfies curiosity and may give me ideas to improve my home some. Others may dream about one day owning a huge home like the ones shown. Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever get rich and I don’t worry about it. If you get there great but I don’t think it should be a lifelong goal.

The belle of the ball this year was a massive 15,000 square foot home that was built down the road from me. No one knows who owns it but everybody is dying to find out. After waiting to get inside I’ll have to say I wasn’t overly impressed. Sure it had big rooms, a bar, a pool, and lots of cool decorations. If I were a person who loved to through parties it would be a house to have. But as far as living in it, no thanks. I’ll keep my little crap shack.

The neatest part for me was learning that this cyclopean house was heated and cooled using a geothermal set-up. And the walls were filled with spray foam! So not only is it huge, a testament to those who own it and built it, but it doesn’t waste energy. Yet another good sign of the direction of future construction.

Green Links For The Week Of 5.12.13

Here are some stories I came across this week, enjoy:

The Upcycle House goes beyond recycling

Solar design never looked so cool: 7 modern projects

100-Year-Old Hints for Drying Clothes Outside

$1.9 billion wind project coming to Iowa

This Town Took On Fracking and Won

Reverse Coal

Here is a cool little video I came across:

A Shocking Realization From Composting

The other night I was carrying our food scraps to the compost bin (we use an all seasons bokashi composter and we keep it in the basement). The compost was from one meal and one dessert. And this is what it looked like:

That seems shocking but it was a meal that lasted several days and the dessert (a cantaloupe) also lasted a few days. My first thought was look at all of this waste, and if it was going in the trash it would be waste. But it wasn’t going in the trash. It was going to be turned into soil and then we would be growing new vegetables in it to eat. There was nothing going to waste here. It was a strange revelation.

Has anyone every had similar shocks?

Green Links For The Week Of 5.5.13

Here are some green links I found this week:

Are these 'the most efficient vehicles on the planet'?

Hydrogen-fueled Aston Martin laps Nurburgring

Oslo runs out of garbage, imports it from rest of the world

Bike Sharing Finally Comes to NYC

Go (slightly) greener by getting your groceries delivered

Scooby Goes Green

Alright, it should say Scooby went green and I believe he may have been green all along. But here is a video of Scooby explaining how he put up solar panels and how you can get some in certain areas even with no money.

For anyone who doesn’t know who Scooby is: Scooby is a fitness expert, in his mid fifties, who gives out all kinds of free good advice. He always wears those hats and some times he builds planes in his garage.

His youtube page is http://www.youtube.com/user/scooby1961

And his website is http://scoobysworkshop.com

Video below: