1) go watch Who Killed the Electric Car? if you haven't already. Or, wait, and I will absolutely be holding a viewing of this movie as soon as I am reasonably settled in my new apartment
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One thing I remember from solar house is that the solar panels are more expensive and take longer to recoup than a basic solar water heater. (Those are cheap to buy and cheap to maintain) They are also currently close to their peak efficiency compared to photovoltaics. My parents have one on their roof and it's been very easy to maintain. (Though they didn't put it in, so they don't know how much difference it makes) (Obviously any type of energy saving is also more eco-friendly - better insulation, better lights, better appliances)
Just make sure to learn from the mistakes of the Solar House - where the Architecture majors have tried to make a house that wouldn't be very easy to wire/build just because it'd look cooler. They put insulation into the walls without thinking about conduits, which made it impossible to run new wiring through walls. So only the things that were put in before insulation was done could be used/reused.
i hope they did. This was another thing with the arch students, but it's also the third house in this project to be built so I'm betting it's a bit more practical. (I also think it's supposed to be more practical, whereas the solar house was a bit more proof of concept look at how cool we are thing.)
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also, if you have any eco-friendly ideas that can work in the suburbs, i want to know about them. aside from composting, that is, we do that already.
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(Obviously any type of energy saving is also more eco-friendly - better insulation, better lights, better appliances)
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