Why Can't I Buy a Really Really Green House?

Now when I say a really really green house I'm talking "The Full Monty". Hello all you regional and national builders out there..."If you build it they will come" flat out doesn't work if you don't build it in the first place!! Let me see if I've got this correct (because I think I do). In these modern times in the Good 'Ol U.S. of A. I can buy a pair of night vision goggles off the internet but I can't buy a new house with some solar panels and a couple of smaller windmills on it? To me that's just wrong on so many different levels. Probably shouldn't even ask about geothermal heating/cooling much less a rainwater collection system huh? Or a temperature controlled grow room so I can grow hydroponic fruits and veggies for my family year round? Now I'm sure there are people a plenty who just love having 1500 colors of the stinky VOC paint for your bathroom to choose from... but what about me? What if I don't want a walk in closet the size of Belize? I'd rather not have to take a tram to go from the "his" to the "her" side of the closet. (Just for the record, I don't cross dress in case you were wondering why I'd be on the "tram" in the first place. Sometimes I pull laundry duty. A healthy relationship is a balance of give and take, you gotta pitch in and help out sometimes. O.K. she's gone now...where was I?) Oh yea...how about cut the closet in half and add on a battery storage room for the wind and solar?

Look, I know some builders have made some attempts at improving the energy efficiency of housing and incorporated it into their building practices...but no one comes close to energy independance. Maybe your thinking all these "green energy" add on's would cost too much to make a house affordable? Well let's look at this a different way for a quick minute.

I'll use my house for an example. After we had it built and moved in I was horrified to find our first few electric bills were over $500 a month. So I went around and changed out all the bulbs to the new CFC's, lowered the temp on the hot water heater, raised the setting on the thermastat, got the new HE washer and dryer etc.etc. We were able to get the bill down to $350 a month. That equates to an unbelievable $42,000 over 10 years in electric payments alone!!! More if my electric rates go up in the next ten years.(Solar panels, by the way, usually come with at least a 20 year warranty and one manufacturer just recently upped their warranty to 30 years!!!)

Now what would be the outcome if I put that $42,000 into the house as it was built? Geothermal heating/cooling systems only cost around $5 to $10 thousand more than standard A/C if you put it in when the house is being built. That Geothermal unit would reduce my heating/cooling cost by up to 50%. Heating and cooling is usually by far the biggest part of your electric bill. That will greatly reduce the size of the electric bill which in turn would greatly reduce the size of the solar/wind systems I will need for my house. So for about $20 thousand I could have solar with battery backup installed on/around the house negating an electric bill. Next for about $6000 I could have a rainwater collection system installed saving me $50 a month in water bills. (It would be for watering the lawn and shrubs to keep them looking good as my housing subdivision requires..lest I get a nasty note on my front door or a fine.) That $50 a month would essentially pay for replacing the batteries on the backup system for the solar/wind every 8-10 years.

OK let's tally this up. $10k geothermal plus $20K solar/wind plus $6k rainwater collection equals $36K. That would leave me $6K out of the $42K for my hydroponics room reducing my monthly food bill by at least $100. Now at 8% interest over a 30 year mortgage that $42,000 would add about $325 to my monthly payment...BUT I would have no electric bill, a reduced water bill as well as a reduced food bill. How cool is that? And if one was so inclined they could put the money they were saving on the electric, water, and food to pay down the mortgage. You could probably have it paid off in 10-12 years at that rate. I'm not exactly sure of the timeline because the calculator program I had that did that doesn't work with Windows Vista (but that's another blog for another time).

Enough beating up on the builders for a second, what about the government? Where have they actually been on this whole green building thing anyway? So Uncle Sam can dictate to the greedy, corrupt, out of touch and hence bankrupt auto companies you WILL improve the MPG's of your vehicles by THIS date or else. They can mandate to the energy and power companies that X percent of your electricity WILL come from renewable energy sources by such and such a date. (On the other hand, they seem to think natural gas is a renewable energy but I digress...) AND unless I'm mistaken (I read it somewhere so it must be true...) they are sending the good 'ol fashion lightbulb we grew up with, the way of the Dodo bird. BUT they have done nothing of any MAJOR consequence in the building industry. When I say MAJOR I mean like X percent of the houses you build every year will be energy independant or self sufficient. How many power stations would we NOT have to build every year if the builders were mandated to build say 5% percent of their homes this way? What if the Government required banks to finance the energy independant improvements I listed above?

Ooh...there's another one, banks should be required to approve say 5 percent of their mortgages for energy independant housing. Really, if a bank will finance me on a house why can't I pay just a little more and be energy independant and free of an electric bill? Take note bankers HUD has a somewhat similar plan up and running. You don't want to be last out of the gate do you?

Good ideas I think. One thing I know as an American is If we can dream it we can achieve it. That's how we got to the moon and this will help us get to the stars. Energy Indepence starts from the ground up not the top down. One house and one household at a time. One green guy and one green gal at a time. We can do this if we put our minds to it!!! And when we do... maybe just maybe, Uncle Sam will give you and I an extra day off a year by creating a new national holiday...ENERGY INDEPENDANCE DAY!!!!!

Peace...Love...and a Piece of Love,

Onegreenguy

P.S. -Please take the poll at the bottom of the page. I would like to know your answer. Definately also leave me some feedback below and let me know your thoughts on my first article, and if you have additional ideas...that's the place.