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Anyone here like puzzles? 'Cause we're gonna be putting together 5,000 square feet o' VMI basketball court soon... think of it: The Challenge! The Fun! This is better than the crossword in Sunday's Herald Tribune!

Or not.

"I got up at 6 am, made coffee and hit the road to approve the foundation preparation and receive the VMI Basketball Floor delivery.

As I was emptying out the shed for the floor the plumbers pulled up and I handed them the PEX tubing I had ordered. I began bush-hogging but Ron, the general contractor, soon arrived and we approved prep work.

(Radiant Heat And Off Grid Foundation Video:)

I returned to the tractor for an hour and the flooring arrived. We have a 20x20 shed and the fork lift was too tall/big so we ended up getting the plumbing crew, which had just finished installing the radiant heat loops, to help and were done within an hour.

(VMI Floorboards Unloading Video 1 of 3)

(VMI Recycled Boards Video 2 of 3)

(VMI Wood Reused In Prefab-ulous House Video 3 of 3) (Copeland's note: Oh. My. Gosh... can you believe we were actually thinking we could just rent a U-Haul and drive to Lexington, load the wood *JUST THE TWO OF US*, drive to the land, and then UNLOAD it?!?!? Soooooooooooo grateful to Bill Miller of ZellerMiller Companies, a VMI alumni who heard of our plight and used his construction connections to help, Bill Miller SAVED US by putting us together with these people to deliver the wood.)

I invited everyone to lunch, and as we left I noticed a flat tyre on my car - upon return to the site the delivery guys hadn't left yet and raised the car with their forklift so that the tire was changed quickly.

When I finally made it to lunch we spoke about alternative energy and it turns out that the plumbing company has done several geo-thermal projects."

This week we release a new front page to the site that responds more to the turbulent economic and environmental context we are beginning to face.

Picture this, you are driving home it starts to rain and you think , 'oh great the sprinklers are going on during a shower and I'm paying for it'. Lets face it, if we knew when it was going to rain we wouldn't need to use the sprinklers. How about extra humidity? That counts too, according to CYBER-RAIN, the technology that allows your sprinkler system to adjust it's watering schedule to meet the needs of the day. Cyber-Rain also adjusts to meet watering requirements in the different areas of your yard. It costs about $399.00. Cyber-Rain software enables the controller and your computer to communicate. It communicates with the sprinkler controller to stop watering until the forecast changes. The wireless range from controller to computer is 300 feet.

The computer checks the weather forecast, automatically, throughout the day, communicating to the controller. It stores information, so the computer doesn't have to be the whole time either. It manages up to 8 different zones, which you label yourself, so' fig tree next to bedroom window', can get less water than the 'front yard lawn'. If you don't want the sprinklers to come on when you're having a party you just program it in. Want to know how much you've saved? The system tells you, it keeps track of the amount of water you're using, and it shows you with graphs. Sixty percent of home water use is said to be used for landscape watering. You can dial in your monthly bill on Cyber-Rain's web-site, at www.cyber-rain.com and they will show you how much you would expect to save.

A home building company in Seattle, Howland Homes, recently announced that it will start construction on zHome, a development of 10 townhomes that use zero net energy, 60 percent less water and have clean indoor air.

The development will be built east of Seattle in Issaquah, Washington. Since 2004, Issaquah has required new buildings to meet certain environmental standards and has offered incentives, such as expedited permitting and free green-building consulting, to private developers who do the same.

The homes will cut energy use through such measures as extra insulation, triple-pane windows, LED lighting and ground-source heat pumps, and offset the energy use with solar panels that generate power. The homes will cut water use with rain recycling and efficient water fixtures, reduce runoff with rain recycling, incorporate salvaged, reclaimed and locally made materials, divert 90 percent of construction debris through waste prevention and recycling and use ventilation and healthier materials to improve air quality.

The homes will cost about 25 percent more to build than traditional townhouses. However, because the land was donated for free, they will sell for only 5-10% more, with prices starting around $400,000. The homes are expected to be finished next fall.

Will zero-net energy homes become the next hot building trend? Only time will tell.

In this weeks Slow Home Report we discuss the Rue Street House by Hurt Partners Architects.

I attended West Coast Green this weekend, in San Jose, CA. The usual suspects of brilliant green architects, builders, and all things green related were there. The presentations were great and getting to experience the products in the trade show is always so helpful.

I was happy to see Greg Thorsen, of Environmental Lights. He is so knowledgeable and able to speak in layman’s terms to anyone who wants to know more about LED technology that is now ready for full deployment in our homes. A new day is dawning.

Kevin

On September 15, 2008 the Bio-Mimicry Guild and HOK 'formed an alliance to integrate nature's innovations in the design of buildings, communities and cities worldwide' www.hok.com . The potential of this relationship is of great impact for expanding and progressing the world of sustainable design. This is good news for builders of all 'habitats', large commercial buildings as well as homes. As the world reaches out for sustainable solutions, there will be new answers, for design and engineering, that are surely to come from this new alliance. From a casual perspective, the idea behind Bio-mimicry is that if we could imitate the ways of nature we could solve our own problems. Bio-mimicry uses the emulation of the processes of nature to design sustainable products and building strategies that go with the flow of the eco-system. The Bio-mimicry Guild actually has biologists on call who can help you to find ways that nature can improve your product or building process. www.biomimcryguild.com HOK has been in the business of sustainability for twenty years. It is based on building type, geographic region and budget level. Boasting 'HOK Ideas work' as their slogan, and the influential HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design, both the ideas and the book are about to get very, very, big. The current project from this union is underway at the Lavasa Hill Station community near, Pune, India. Next on the list of project collaborations include Saudi Arabia and North America. The goal is bio-inspired cities, which they hope to change the world. None the less, surely the solutions and products that are discovered along the way will trickle out to the mainstream market.

Berkeley, California has approved a new financing scheme that gives loans to homeowners who install rooftop solar panels.

The program finances city-backed solar loans through a small addition to the property taxes of each participating home, eliminating the need to find up-front cash to install panels which can cost as much as $30,000.  Using property taxes to repay the solar loan also ensures that home values rise to reflect the addition of energy-efficient technology.  If a home sells before its solar loan is fully repaid, its new owner will take over the loan repayments and reap the electricity savings. 

The next step for Berkeley is to line up a source of capital to begin offering the loans, which are expected to have a 20-year life and be repaid by a $180 monthly property tax increase.

This plan, which is similar in concept to a local law passed several months ago by Babylon, New York and mentioned by this blog, which provides low-interest loans to residents to pay for energy efficiency upgrades to their homes.  Providing public money for renewable energy or energy efficiency upgrades is a win-win in our book. We hope this is the start of a trend.