An Off Day...Sorta

     Hey all! Sorry but the next two days I will be a little out of touch. My wife and I are visiting with our home builder to pick out the different things for the new house. Very exciting! For us anyway. We are stuck in a two bedroom flat with 3 animals and lots of mold right now, so the new house will be our Mecca. Schwörer Haus is our builder, and they practice sustainable forestry, offer a wide array of recycled and sustainable materials, operate under a fair trade policy and are a market leader of homes equipped with renewable energy.

     The new house will have a 5kw Solar array on a south facing roof, a Solar Thermal system for hot water, 30cm insulted walls, an air exchange system that keeps the humidity and air quality at peak levels. a hybrid geo-thermal system that uses pipes and outside air to heat or cool saline to regulate the temperature no matter what time of year and space for a back-up battery system to store excess solar power to be used in off-production hours. Not to mention, we will also install a green roof on the garage to filter rainfall and will run pipes for a future cistern to store rainwater so we can utilize it to wash clothes and flush the toilets. All of those, along with passive solar and energy saving appliances and LED lightbulbs, we will reduce our CO2 footprint (when compared with our home in America) by over 70% while conserving water!

     I will post pics tomorrow of all the cool stuff we see. Check out Schwörer Haus on their home site. I can't find it in English right now, but if you speak French, Spanish or Italian, your in luck. You can at least look at the pictures.

     So, when you hear or read that someone said renewables and energy efficiency won't work, send them to Southern Germany. They can see for themselves that homes at a higher altitude and higher latitude can be powered just fine without fossil fuels.