Zero-energy home in Cambridge, Mass.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, the city's first "zero-energy" home has broken fr...ee of the power grid. A team of MIT engineering students are behind the solar-powered house. NECN's Mont Fennel attended the "power up" ceremony.


http://video.aol.com/video-detail/zero-energy-home-in-cambridge-mass/3732660316

...full on owned it, and your only expenses were insurance, property taxes, food, and the occasional repair...

what would you do with your life?

Work full time and donate to charity, or work just enough to cover bills, and volunteer for charity?

Or buy a really kick ass baseball card collection? Or go on lots of exotic vacations? Or spend all your time keeping the neighborhood free from "undesireables" and poorly trimmed lawns?

I'm interested to think what a real ownership society might look like.

But if your significant other becomes chronically ill and you become the caregiver what happens is you keep taking out equity on your home to pay the essentials, heh, so much for the ownership society.
Take it from one that knows.

...which is why it would be real nice if people could own their home at a younger age. I mean seriously, is a house and the right to squat on land really worth twenty, thirty years of labor? I think someone's getting the short end of that stick.

Besides just food, insurance, and property taxes. If you were willing to live really frugally, you could probably get away pretty cheap. However, start adding up the costs if, for instance, if you want access to the internet; you want to be able to watch more than network TV; subscribe to magazines or newspapers; add in buying clothes, household items, costs if you want to own a car, etcetera, etcetera. As attractive as a low-cost lifestyle sounds, there are sacrifices that one would have to be willing to make. Housing is a big ticket cost, but not the only ticket.

If the house costs an extra $100K and you would normally pay $2,500 a year in gas/electricity, it would take 40 years to break even.

...lower risk of energy price spikes, which alter that equation,

...and lower risk of default during financial dry spells.

That's got to be worth something. To me, a lot, actually.

from an electrical surge. The transformer near our house has blown out twice this year. Once back in June and then again last month. When it blew last month it was enough of an electrical surge that it melted the wires up to our house which caused them to catch fire. Thankfully my brother was home. He heard a loud boom and went outside. He said there were flames shooting up along the house and he was able to put out the fire before it caught hold. We lost a couple of small appliances (including my computer). On the upside, we now we know why we started having brownouts. And since the wires were replaced I'm now able to brew coffee and cook breakfast at the same time.

Communities in Florida may have thunderstorms on one out of three days, so the building codes require that a large surge arrestor be located near the power entrance/circuit breaker box.

They have a large energy capacity (Joules) and are set to a slightly lower voltage than the surge arrestors near your appliances. This is so that the big surge arrestor actuates before the smaller surge arrestors.

They are not commonly used in Ohio.

and assuming you don't save on gas for your car.

:hi:

when it comes to solar electric systems, and electric or hybrid cars....

And the answer to the question is that it doesn't matter. The way we are doing things now is going to end. There will be no cost comparison.

It's time to change...

Just give me a wind up radio, an led lamp and a stack of Edward Abbey books to hole up with and I am happy.

I never got to ask them what they were doing I suspected it was something along these lines.