Keeping Up With The Jones's Becomes Keeping Up With The Greens

by E.

[ Tampa 07/24/05 ]

   Home ownership. The American dream. Home ownership is one of the last bastions of complete freedom of will, choice & independence. A man/woman's home is their castle, right? But did you know that with ongoing developments in renewable energy technologies, green construction materials & green design architecture (biotechture), your home doesn't have to pollute & cost you $ every time you flip on a light switch? In fact your home can be producing it's own electricity, supplying much of it's own water, heat & cooling (or be designed so well that their is little need for powered air conditioning or lighting). Currently, on the west coast of the U.S., their are homes that produce a surplus of clean energy & sell it back to their electric company or are off the grid altogether.

    If you think these types of homes have only one 15 watt light bulb & no HDTV, you'd be wrong. Modern homes with all the techno-cultural creature comforts American's have decided they can't live without are still available in a properly designed energy self-sufficient home. While it currently costs more to design, construct & outfit a renewable resource home, those costs are rapidly falling as the market grows. How does the market grow? These markets will grow by consumers becoming aware & demanding these goods & services. That's where you, my dear consumer, come in. So read on & learn how to make your world better while simultaneously making everyone's world better. Win-win results are becoming within our grasp, & this site is about keeping you up to date on them.

   Here's what I will build here in Tampa to make others aware of green hi-tech living, & to promote the business of whatever construction company has the expertise to do it. I've designed this house to survive our increasingly severe hurricane seasons.

  The additional costs of green design & construction are investments that pay off in savings on energy bills, higher property value & the assurance that if mass power & other utilities fail for any reason, you'll still be kicking back with your surround sound in effect, your 'fridge cold & your shower hot. Now who's smarter, the Greens or the Jones's?

I recently purchased a home in Tampa that will become my 'HyGrid' learning project. "HyGrid" means that the house is still connected to the Teco electric power grid but only draws from it when I'm not producing sufficient power from solar or Hydrogen systems. I will post my progress on this page to educate others how to do this.

    Real estate developers, construction contractors & rental property owners should also get to know these renewable energy technologies & bring them to their areas. Cases like the ING financial office building in Southeastern Amsterdam, Holland, & the Village Homes housing development in Davis, California have already proven how profitable an environmentally conscious structure can be.

Green development residential rental properties tend to fill with residents more quickly because of their superior amenities & keep their tenants longer because of their lower operating costs. Green designed office buildings make their investments back in saved power costs & also reap the benefits of less absenteeism among their workforce. Another result is a gain in labor productivity because of better working conditions. Businesses housed in green design environments have also demonstrated that they can beat out their competition in contract bidding because of lower operating costs. Companies like Boeing, VeriFone, Lockheed Martin & WalMart have already realized many of these advantages.

     You can choose to become completely independent in your home while you help/inspire your fellow citizens through example. With current & developing technologies in architectural design methods you can live in a new level of creature comfort & have less of an impact on our shared biosphere.

    Keeping up with the Jones's is about to become about more than tech & toy lust. It's becoming about who can do & have more while using (and having to pay for) less. Electrical & water meter readings will be the new way we can measure success & achieve bragging rights. Think about how different things might be if you wore your electrical meter like a watch & showed your neighbors how much more you were doing/having while using less energy. The idea of wearable energy metering was originated by cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling.

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