Anticipating the Future & Building a New Home

Posted by jondavis on Thursday, 6 of December , 2007 at 11:13 am

We all know that energy is going to be one of the most pressing issues facing us both as individuals and a society. In the past few years, oil and other petrol-related fuels, such as natural gas, have been rising in price much faster than the general inflation rate. It was only a few years ago that a barrel of oil was selling at $20 and currently it is very close to $100. That is a 500% increase, and the ramifications of this have not yet worked through our economy. Throw in global warming and political volatility in oil producing countries and you can imagine what we will be contending with in the near future. In terms of energy, we are in the beginning phase of a perfect storm which is going to ripple through our country and the world like a huge tsunami.
The issue is not if but when and how fast.

The new reality is that energy costs are going to go up significantly and they are not to going to come back down. Europe and most of the world has been dealing with high energy costs for decades but the US has been in a stupor regarding the obvious problem of fuel sources and costs.

I am reminded of a story that I heard years ago that stuck with me. It points out a trait of human nature, perhaps, that has enormous ramifications for us personally as well as globally. The issue is about the ability of our society to see what is taking place right in front of us, coupled with our inability to take action in a timely way.

The early 1900s was a time of enormous change as the world switched from horses and buggies to automobiles. In a matter of a few decades the entire US economy went through a sea change of technologies that eventually changed everything about how we lived. Life was never the same after the age of oil began. Forward looking people could see the possibilities and ramifications of the oil and automobile juggernaut. Before this time, the horse was our primary mode of transportation and an enormous industry developed to make wooden wagon wheels. It was both a craft and an industry where hundreds of thousands of people made wagon wheels. Of course there were all of the ancillary businesses that sold the wheels, repaired them and replaced them as they were worn out.

With our hindsight we can easily see that at some point in the development of the automobile there was a clear indication that major changes were occurring and that the days of the horse and buggy (and all that went along with them) were soon to be made obsolete by the new automobile technologies. What is interesting is that the point in time when the most people were employed in the wooden wheel industry was well after the new automobile was clearly on the rise and the horse and buggy were destined to be tossed into the dust bins of history. People who were forward thinking could see this coming and many of them made the change early on and prospered. Those who did not see the change (or didn’t want to see it) and continued making buggy wheels eventually fell on tough times as their vocation simply disappeared.  What fascinates me about this story is that the highest number of people ever were in training to make buggy wheels at the same point when it was well known that automobiles were the future. The writing was clearly on the wall but most people simply did not make any changes until the new reality swept over them and they were thrown out of work and were forced to accept the new reality.

I believe that a similar phenomenon is currently taking place right in front of us regarding homebuilding and, again, most people do not have a clue. Our current homebuilding industry and the design, methods and materials used in the current, average new homes are already woefully out of date and obsolete. We are building buggy homes (a nice pun!) when the reality of high energy costs is clearly pointing out that we will have to change whether we want to or not. If you are thinking about building a new home based on the way homes have been built over the past 30 years, then you will be making the worst investment possible. We are at that the beginning of sea change in energy and if you build an energy hog home (current style Mac-Mansion) you will probably live to regret it. The technology to build zero energy homes is in place, it is well tested and it will be the best investment you ever make, not only in terms of money but also in comfort, peace of mind, and making the world a better place.

Margie and I live in home we built four years ago. It is beautiful, comfortable, almost maintenance free and we pay almost NOTHING to heat and cool our home. In fact, we generate more electricity than we use and we get money back at the end of each year, plus we live with the peace of mind that our home will appreciate much faster than the old buggy style homes. We are actively working toward being part of the solution and not part of the problem. The “point of power” that we all have is the power of the decisions we make. The handwriting is on the wall in great big letters. We are in a new era, but our thinking has not caught up to it. The people who understand this will prosper and those who don’t will suffer.
Simple as that.

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Category: Passive Solar

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