Self Sufficient Is The Zero House

It seems to have a lot of surface area to volume...

Several of the rooms have 5 out of the 6 faces exposed...that can't make sense in terms of insulation...

4/10 Must try harder

We will have to go in jungles (wherever is still left for that purpose) and live nomadic life like animals and send 3/4 of world human population to another planet

Hmm, that sounds like the Golgafrincham's and the B ark! :D

The problem is cost. When most people buy a house they buy as much house as they can afford. Adding cost for things that do not have an instant payback are a hard sell when people spend as much as they can to get the biggest house first.

Most people do not plan long range and are willing to make payments over time (i.e., electric and utility bills). Want proof? Look at how much credit debt we carry. We buy what we don't have cash for now and are willing to pay a premium (read that as interest) to have what we want now rather than wait until we have accumulated the cash.

Home buyers are looking first for luxury, location, and status in a house. Its energy efficiency is not the primary reason to select a house, but it does have high marks. Still, many people are content with a lower energy efficiency if they can get other things in the house they want.

I can tell you that the proposed house would be useless in Florida. The roof is a disaster waiting for a hurricane. Compounding in the basement is a virtual nest for insects and termites. The decks are useless (unless screened) most of the year. The wind loading of the structure is as bad as the roof. Cooling would be harder with a two story house since the heat will be raising to the upper floor. Still, there are two story houses here, but not many since it increases the amount of area that radiated sunlight can heat.

Solar panels (electric and hot water) is very practical here. I have them to heat the pool. Water is plentiful here, so having a storage cistern is not really useful (mosquitos!), but we do have very hard water from the ground.

It looks like it has been designed by an architect (and if you look at the site it was). The fact that its solar roof can power the house is misleading in the fact that it is obviously assuming you have some sort of gas supply to power any high load electrical appliances (stove, electric jug and heaters, etc). I myself would have preferred a square modular arrangement with two rectangular modules bolted together on site (easy to transport if they fit into a standard 40 foot container format), far better utilisation of space. I DONT like the fact that solar hot water heating does NOT seem to be included. This is about the only solar technology that is actually economical using current technology and should be standard for any high efficiency house design !

I am reminded of the story of the architect down here that had a brilliant idea. He asked an engineer to help him implement it. He wanted to create his dream house - a square house with the outside surface areas consisting of glass walls on all sides, and located on top of a cliff (near the edge), with the house resting on one of its corners to create a diamond shape. He asked an engineer how he could do it. The engineer replied that he would need two very large mobile cranes (one on each side of the house) to support the structure on its point. That was the end of that idea (we Engineers are good, but we are not THAT good)!

It seems we all agree it's pretty poor...

Note to self:- avoid that architect!

We used to have self-sufficient housing. They were called mud huts. Or caves.

Solar power, rain-water-drinking and such are viable options in a relatively small geographic area - and they tend to NOT be areas where a large number of people live. Does Tokyo get enough sunlight to power its housing? Would you like to drink Mexico City's rain water? Would you want every house in your neighborhood dumping its grey and wastewater into the water table? Ever try to run a refridgerator on solar panels? Hope you like eating spoiled meat.

If you want to get an idea of what its like to live in "self-sufficient" housing, all you need to do is visit the un-developed areas of India, China, and other such 2nd and 3rd world states - cardboard and tin building materials, hot and cold running sewage, and all the cholera and dysentery you could ever want.

I welcome the idea of people living as independently as possible, but we need to be realistic - wasting time on "dream homes" is counterproductive. At current prices and availability, the only people who can afford to live in such "green mansions" are the wealthy. I'd much rather see photoelectrics come down in price, and building codes and contractor knowledge advance into at least the late 20th century. Heck, even as simple a thing as siting a home on a lot to take advantage of solar exposure would be useful - southfacing homes in the parts of the Northern Hemi where it makes sense to expose window area to solar radiation, etc. But no, they still plop homes down facing the STREET in the development, instead of facing the SUN. In warmer climes, building with shade and cooling in mind - instead of trying to make the house look like the new owners towed it down from New Jersey..

1: Dome is most efficient

2: Dome is not associated with Euro aristocracy, therefore few will want it.

3: Um, septic fields WORK

4: greywater is excellent for gardens

5: passive solar heating, compost heating, geothermal heating are all viable, NOW.

6: The problem is people, not nature, she got along fine without us, can we do the same?

7: Don't ever tell someone not to dream. I don't want to list the number of times convention was wrong. Einstein said "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." To that I would add indefatigable arrogance.

<< 3: Um, septic fields WORK>>

No one's debating their efficiency. However, it's generally not good practice to site a well downstream of them.

<<4: greywater is excellent for gardens>>

Not in all cases. Clothes- and dishwashing- effluent is generally not recommended for begonias and beets.

<<5: passive solar heating, compost heating, geothermal heating are all viable, NOW.>>

Define VIABLE - yes, they "work", but is the current cost/benefit for some of them enough to get the building trades, and the general public, convinced? I agree, passive solar heating is about the easiest dam' thing to do, but it probably won't be standard until the public demands it.

<<6: The problem is people, not nature, she got along fine without us, can we do the same?>>

It's not a question of "Man vs Nature" - we all know who'll get the crappy end of the stick in that one - it's a question of whether or not the segments of the Earth's population who are by now used to hot and cold running water, heated and air conditioned homes, refridgerated food storage, daily bathing, and other "hallmarks of civilization", are willing to defer and reduce their 'consumption', in order to allow those segments of the population for whom these benefits are as yet unknown, to advance themselves to the same level. And yes, I'm sorry, but I consider a weather-proof home and passable sanitary conditions to be a measure of progress, not a vile indicator of conspicuous consumption that is to be condemned by those who also enjoy the same benefits.

<<7: Don't ever tell someone not to dream>>

That's not my intent - I just think it's the height of arrogance to propose a $300,000 house that is only "zero" in terms of its availability to the people who need it most - when the architects design a 400-unit condominium or high-density housing that's self sufficient, THEN I'll applaud their efforts - but this is a ridiculous exercise in architectural idiocy.

Well said indeed , it is difference in wealth and civilization gap around the globe , lower segment of civilizations tend to match up the upper one , man did posses the ability to think and build what he inteded that bypassed natures givings , his desire for wanting more created different problems and glitches and now we propose to go back from where we started .

all points noted.

With sufficient earth, (read depth) between them, it is fine. We would have space things out a bit though.

garden was deliberately generic, I am more interested in illuminating the rule than the exception.

building trades: will built what you pay for

banks: easy to convince: show them the money, or the competition. For new construction, geothermal is not terribly expensive and the banks can get on board as ENERGY PRICES RISE.

I disagree, it is not a matter of equalization. It is a matter of efficiency. There is no reason to make processes more expensive than they need to be (objectively). You will only hasten war, since fundamentally, wars are driven by resource control. In fact you can't have a very good war without lots of resources in the first place.

The 'underclass' will only have to wait. They will outlive their lavish fellows without firing a shot. In fact the lavish ones will probably kill each other. If WWI and WWII are any indication of things yet to come, the industrialized nations will destroy one another unless they very quickly learn to live off their own resources and the title "conservative politician" takes on an entirely new meaning, something more like "sustainable politician".

The alternative will be what it has been: endless ever more rapacious war.

It is inevitable, the cancer will consume, spread and destroy its host and then die off itself.

Sustainability means just that. The alternative to sustainability is ... exhaustion.

There is a much bigger issue on the horizon:

Who is going to do all this work when the machines run out of oil?

Hmmmm, well, how was it done before?

I remember now, CHATTEL SLAVERY.

Everything old is new again.

It sounds reasonable, but hard to achieve. For example, I live in Singapore and it's just not that much land here and it's very expensive to afford any kind of house. So I just applied for a loan to purchase an apartment in a new condominium - piermont-grand-ec