Abandoned Stable Becomes Luxury, Off-Grid Home
What looks like an old barn in the hills of Extremadura, Spain, turns out to be a stunning, luxury and entirely off-grid home. Click here to see this amazing home:
There’s nothing like the crackle, warmth and glow from a real wood-burning fireplace. But for apartment dwellers without an existing fireplace, alternatives to the traditional chimney and flue are necessary. Ventless designs powered by eco-friendly biofuel are now available in modern materials and as ceiling-mount, wall-mount and floor standing units. Here are a few sleek designs that won’t leave you feeling left out in the cold.
Pick up the current copy of Home Improvement Magazine. We have 2 projects featured in this years Green Guide. Click here to read the rest…….
f you are interested in green building, or call yourself a green building expert, then you should know about Mineral Wool insulation. If you have not seen Mineral Wool handled and installed, then you need to read this. If you think that Mineral Wool batts are similar enough to Fiberglass batts that you already know what you need to know about it, then you are a fool. And you still need to read this.
Video: The Passive House Revolution By Charles Hoxie.Twenty years ago, German physicists erected a home that demonstrated how little energy a building would need if built with, among other things, thick insulation and airtight walls. The so-called “ Passive House ” (or “Passivhaus” in German) was soon …
a resilient home is extremely well-insulated, so that it can be kept warm with very little supplemental heat–and if power or heating fuel is lost, for some reason, there won’t be risk of homeowners getting dangerously cold or their pipes freezing. If we design and orient the house in such a way that natural heating from the sun can occur, we add to that resilience and further reduce the risk of the house getting too cold in the winter.
The White House hopes that someday soon everyone will be able to monitor and control their home energy usage, and lower their monthly utility bills, with a few swipes on a smartphone app. At least that’s the vision of the Green Button initiative, a recent White House effort to bring together the nation’s utilities, energy consumers and private industry to develop Internet and mobile phone-style technologies and business models aimed at reducing energy consumption.
The PumPing Tap might be just the green gadget that phantom power regulators have been looking for. It’s a smart socket that knows when you’ve turned your appliances off and if you don’t pull the plug out after ten minutes it pops your vampire power sucking cord right out
Onyx just announced that they have installed their first 330-Watt “Plug-N-Play” solar panels at their demonstration site in Orlando, Florida. The two all-in-one solar panels have an incorporated micro inverter and a standard US AC power outlet plug that allows the owner to simply plug an extension cord into the panel and then use that chord like an outlet in their home. One of the demonstration panels also has a lithium battery incorporated into the unit that can store power for when the sun isn’t shining.
Want to create a cozy retreat for those cold, wintry days and nights? There are many things you can do to make your home feel warmer, improve its efficiency and lower energy bills. In this post I’ll focus on ideas for drafty windows and doors. ADD THERMAL DRAPES OR ADD CURTAIN LINERS to your regular.