[djmcmath]

Hmm. Full-fledged solar panels are incredibly expensive, but ... some math ... in my household right now, we go through about 400KW in a month -- that's living in an apartment in a climate that doesn't currently require heat or AC. If a solar system is putting out about 1.7KW for about 8 hours each day, that would cover the entire basic electrical load. Those systems run about $10K, which is not that bad, in the grand scheme of things. The break even point, even assuming a 25% rise in electricity costs, is about 8 years out.

Trombe walls -- great idea, but I have a wife who's very concerned about aesthetics. No go. Hot water heater cylinder is a pretty good idea, though. Sounds like it's basically a reworking of the "black tubes in glass" principle with a little natural circulation flow and a tank added on. I can almost guarantee that something like this will end up in our house. I'll end up building something myself, though -- the principles are so impossibly simple that it seems crazy not to do something like that.

Porsche-o-Phile -- if you have good resources on sustainable design, I'm interested. Not interested enough to pursue LEEDS certification, or to dig a 1000 foot geothermal well, but I'm interested enough to get a good book on the subject.


OK, so "green" pisses me off, too. It's kind of been abused by the environmentalist crowd to take on this connotation of "earth first, f--- everyone else." I'm less interested in a full-fledged "green" effort than I am in simply saving some money in the long run.

Thanks all,
Dan