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My sustainable home project -- still looking for clean energy generator
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Maybe you have some ideas for locating the best renewable energy options and optimizing our sustainable design. We've accepted an offer on our present home, so the 1031 roll-over clock is ticking.
  This plan by Michael Reynolds of Earthships.org is close to what we will probably be doing on our first level earth ship, though we'll nix the tower as it would cast a shadow on the solar gain. A second level would be tiered up the hill behind the first level to provide enough space for our family of six. |
Here's the latest on our Safe Haven Villages project, in which we are building a sustainable community involving renewable energy, rain harvesting, compost toilets, gray water recycling, Earthship construction for significantly diminished warming/heating costs, in-home garden, and other sustainable elements.
One of my reasons for sharing this with you is in the hope that some of you might have good suggestions for our project so that we can implement the best resources available that are within our timeframe and budget -- which is low, as is the case for most people nowadays. Our project wouldn't be much of an inspiration if it was extravagant. There are some very clever ways to do things inexpensively.
You would think that after covering the field of free energy technology for 7.5 years that I would have found something besides solar and wind to power our community by now. While there are a few things that look interesting, we haven't landed anything for sure yet. So if you have such a technology or know of one, please let us know. We'd be glad to help you with the beta testing. And we'd be glad to let people in to see it in operation if that's okay. Think of the good coverage you'll get.
A big milestone was reached yesterday as we accepted an offer on our home, so we are now under contract. We'll have 45 days from closing on Oct. 21 to identify a new property for the 1031 roll-over we're doing. Then we'll have 180 days to transfer the funds to the new property and earth ship home construction.
 You can see from this view of the hill, looking northwest, that there is a lot of south-facing slope on which to build homes. |
We plan to use a portion of the proceeds from our home sale to purchase the first 40 acres for our community. The rest we'll put toward materials for our earth ship home, relying on the community to help us with the labor, which is usually a significant portion of the price on home construction. Each full member of our community commits to 10 hours a week of community service, which would go toward helping others build, or building the community center, among other tasks.
Our offer on the original 80 acres we were looking at was turned down, so we're looking at another spot further south that is on a south-facing hill, which would be ideal for earth ship construction, which you want to build into the side of a hill, if possible. We plan to put in an offer in the next few days.
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| The hill is surrounded on the south and east by Manti-La Sal National forest. While the area is secluded, not visible from any highways, most modern conveniences are less than a 10 minute drive away. | |
Here's an annotated video I shot Thursday showing some of the surrounding area as well as the south-facing area. It's a pretty boring 10 minutes. The photos above give you a pretty good idea what the area looks like. (You can click on the images to see a higher-res version.) The owner has 3000 acres in this are that are available, so we were checking out various parcels.
I've started at page at PESWiki to post the updates on our progress: http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Sterling_Allan%27s_Sustainable_Home Remember that PESWiki is a publicly editable site, so you can log in and directly lodge your suggestions there. Don't worry, there is a history of all changes made, so we have a record of previous content.
Thanks in advance for helping us come up with an optimal design given the short time and small budget that we have.
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