Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: GO SOLAR (formerly heating)

[Roger Diggle (diggle]

On 11/17/94, Ross wrote:

>      Stewart Brand has a book out about How Buildings
> Learn, which is most interesting - about evolutionary
> design, rather than visionary design.  Nevertheless, it
> has been my observation that well-intentioned owner-
> builders and new house builders, who "outfit" their
> construction to be "solar ready" (pipe runs to the roof,
> etc.) NEVER get around to adding the collectors later,
> "when the cost of collectors comes down," or "when we can
> afford it."

Lemme see:
Let's say I have $70K of credit, two kids, and choices to make about where to
put money in a house.  First money goes to good insulation, good siting, good
glass, good passive solar absorption and storage, and... damn, no more money.
 But I wanted photovoltaics and solar hot water!

I don't wanna skimp on the other stuff, though, because it's expensive,
difficult or impossible to change later.  Do I shrink my house to get the
money?  Maybe... but sheesh,  I've already shrunk it twice.  Damn, I wish the
Bank wasn't forcing me to buy that boiler, but it was that or no house!

Lemme see, if I build that battery room under the stairs on the wall
back-to-back with the electric meter, and run piping to the attic and cap it
for now, and have the electrician run the wiring for the pump, I can save
some money up and put in the solar hot water in two years and the
photovoltaics in five.  I won't have to pay any interest financing the solar
installations.  And, even though electricity will still probably be cheap
enough around here that photovoltaics still won't even pay their way then,
I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that in the future I'll be prepared,
and I'll be saving a ton of coal every few years after that.  And when the
energy crunch comes, I'll be smiling...

This seems like a pretty reasonable scenario to me.  I agree, even better to
do it all up front, but sometimes reality intrudes...

Roger Diggle

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