The purpose of the renewable energy house is to demonstrate that everything needed can come from the environment in a way that is not environmentally harmful. Distributed water and electric systems such as cities and towns have are an effective way to provide water and electricity to large groups of people. However, for a small household that is conservative with water and electricity use, city services can be quite expensive. There are also losses in the power lines and water distribution pipes and a large amount of electrical energy is used in the pumping, pressurizing, filtering, etc.
Here is my blog detailing the progress of the alternative energy house. Most of what will be done will be blogged here. The rest will be added to this page.
http://renewableenergyhouse.blogspot.com/
After removing the chicken roost area, the next requirement was to install a new well. Here is the page that describes the process of installing a hand drilled well. No power tools were used in the installation of this well. The well was drilled in the future kitchen area of the house for accessibility. Here are some pictures of the house after the tear out was all done.
The lumber on and around the sawhorses is being inspected and de-nailed to be reused in the house.
The stacked up materials are the good boards that have been prepared to be reused in the house.
June 16 Update: Work is proceeding on the house framing. The rafters and walls are framed and some of the siding has been put back on. Here are some pictures.
Here is the front of the house with the front wall and the rafters in place.
Here is a view from the west end showing the framing for the end.
Here is the view in the west door, where the kitchen will be. This room was five and a half feet wide so I removed it from the house and moved it out to seven feet, which is less cramped for a kitchen.
West side partially sided.
West side siding on, awaiting battens.
West side with the battens on.
Roof sheathing is on, ready for roofing now. Total sq. ft. is 201 sq. ft.
Wouldn't you know it? No rain in the forecast, but it rained all night!!! And all morning!!! So I installed the roofing felt to protect the structure in the rain. Then, of course, it quit raining. So here is a picture of the house with the felt on and boards to keep it secure until the shingles go on.
Here are some pictures of the new wiring. There are three power busses. They are 120VAC, 12VDC and 5.5VDC. These will accommodate the various sources of renewable power. There is also a high speed data bus and category 5 telephone wiring. These different wiring schemes will allow use of different voltage appliances and lights without having to convert from one form to another. Every conversion has a loss factor, so it is better to use the electricity as originally generated. In the second and fourth pictures, the wire hanging from the ceiling is audio wire, for listening to a central sound system.
Toilet facilities will be a composting toilet. The toilet room is located in a shed that is twelve feet from the back door of the house. Here are two pictures of the unfinished facility.
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