After the birth of our daughter, Nina and I have been discussing
self-sufficiency and lower energy impact. We want to teach Toni that it
is a good thing to conserve energy and care for her
environment. Additionally, this is a way to show people that you do not
have to turn into a super hippie in order to care for your environment
and conserve a bit. Right now we are doing a lot of research into what
it will take to remodel our current house and what it would take to do
it in a different one. Right now we live in a town house so we cannot
control every aspect of the property. Additionally, we are looking at a
few plots of land that we would build a house on that could
potentially be the site for our off-grid house.
I must say there are some interesting building methods and ideas out
there regarding green building. People seem to be using everything
including pop cans (seriously) as the main building material for their
houses. The biggest issue will not be “can we use this?” but “Would I
really want to use this?”. I can see some of the ideas that we will come
up with have to go on the list and get stuck down just because I cannot
fathom living in a house made entirely of beer cans. I still have some
old fashioned style to me where I would rather live in a an old castle
that is falling down around me then some thing that I have been tossing
in the recycle bin for years. Plus, I doubt the structural integrity of
a can covered in mud. Honnestly, if I am going to build a house, I want
to be able to live there for years.