My house uses a lot of energy. Specifically, it uses a lot of electricity. A good portion of that electricity is because of the Geothermal system which uses Geothermal heat pumps to heat and cool the house. To offset that, I had a 20KW solar array installed.  While October is not the most ideal of months for solar power (lot of rainy days), the results are looking somewhat promising. Now, let me first be clear: Even with all the subsidies involved (which are a lot) the cost p...

I have found a great community for talking to people about ways to decrease my impact on the environment. The new home my wife and I are building is one I want to try to reduce the amount of energy it uses (despite the fact that it's ridiculously big). If you're interested in green solutions, it's a great site. http://forums.treehugger.com/viewforum.php?f=1

The cottage isn't done yet but it's getting close. Here's some recent pictures. From the beech looking back. From the deck (you can see the lake in the background). Fancy bathtub. (faucets not on yet) Stone chimney

Up north our cottage is nearly done. It should be totally done by the first of June.  We're pretty excited.  Here are some pictures of the latest progress: Beach in front of cottage Unifnished great room and fireplace Upstairs cat walk Wintery outside A view from the dining room. A view from the upstairs window

We're starting to nail down designs. I'm still a little wary about the width of it.  The property is very narrow -- 55 feet. The house will end up being 40 feet wide. That means only 7.5 feet of space on each side before you're on someone else's property. That seems pretty tight.  I am losing 6 foot of the width because we really want to have an outdoor bathroom. The cottage is on a sandy beech at Higgins Lake so we really want kids to be able to go "potty" without...

Back in 2003, I had my basement finished using the Owens Corning Basement System.  It's an alternative to dry-wall that looks similar to dry-wall but is actually soft to the touch (that is, it is almost like a cushion). The advantages of Owens Corning's system to normal dry-wall (According to Owens Corning) include: Basements can be finished much quicker.  The 1200 square foot or so of our basement that we got finished was done in about 10 days (compared to months with dry-wall...

If you decide you want to finish your basement there are lots of options to consider.  Do you do it yourself? Do you contract it out? Maybe do a little in between? For me and my wife, we just aren't handy enough to try to finish a basement on our own.  So we decided we'd contract the whole thing out. Once you decide you're going to contract it out, then it's a matter of deciding what direction to take with it. Do you go with drywall? The problem with drywall is that it takes months ...

Our cottage up north is about half-way done. We're so excited! Here are some pictures our friends Cathy and Carl took for us of its progress: ...

A couple years ago I looked my nose down on gated communities. Bunch of scaredy cat snobs. Think they can hide from us commoners behind their gates and fences? Like they're too good for us? My attitude has slowly been changing. I am coming to appreciate why some people choose to live in a gated community (some not most). Each year my activities on-line get more and more attention. Most of it's good. But not all of it. During the Starforce copy protection thing , I got some some scarey call...

My house uses a lot of energy. Specifically, it uses a lot of electricity. A good portion of that electricity is because of the Geothermal system which uses Geothermal heat pumps to heat and cool the house. To offset that, I had a 20KW solar array installed.  While October is not the most ideal of months for solar power (lot of rainy days), the results are looking somewhat promising. Now, let me first be clear: Even with all the subsidies involved (which are a lot) the cost p...

I have found a great community for talking to people about ways to decrease my impact on the environment. The new home my wife and I are building is one I want to try to reduce the amount of energy it uses (despite the fact that it's ridiculously big). If you're interested in green solutions, it's a great site. http://forums.treehugger.com/viewforum.php?f=1

The cottage isn't done yet but it's getting close. Here's some recent pictures. From the beech looking back. From the deck (you can see the lake in the background). Fancy bathtub. (faucets not on yet) Stone chimney

Up north our cottage is nearly done. It should be totally done by the first of June.  We're pretty excited.  Here are some pictures of the latest progress: Beach in front of cottage Unifnished great room and fireplace Upstairs cat walk Wintery outside A view from the dining room. A view from the upstairs window

We're starting to nail down designs. I'm still a little wary about the width of it.  The property is very narrow -- 55 feet. The house will end up being 40 feet wide. That means only 7.5 feet of space on each side before you're on someone else's property. That seems pretty tight.  I am losing 6 foot of the width because we really want to have an outdoor bathroom. The cottage is on a sandy beech at Higgins Lake so we really want kids to be able to go "potty" without...

Back in 2003, I had my basement finished using the Owens Corning Basement System.  It's an alternative to dry-wall that looks similar to dry-wall but is actually soft to the touch (that is, it is almost like a cushion). The advantages of Owens Corning's system to normal dry-wall (According to Owens Corning) include: Basements can be finished much quicker.  The 1200 square foot or so of our basement that we got finished was done in about 10 days (compared to months with dry-wall...