The Island of Misfit Ideas

Over the past few months, we have been planning, scheming, and re-examining plans we had previously made. We started looking into cool technologies that we had seen or heard of in various places to see if it could fit with our home. All of the ideas tossed around were excellent ideas, but often too expensive for our budget. The rule of thumb we have found is this - if the technology works and reduces your environmental footprint or your dependence on oil, it costs between $15K and $20K up front to incorporate.

Among the ideas tossed around (and then out) were insulated concrete forms for the basement, a geothermal heat exchange system for heating (not the borehole type you think of in Iceland, but a water to air heat exchanger), and solar water heating and power. Sadly, we don't have any spare buckets of cash sitting around, or we may have incorporated these ideas into our house from the get go.

That said, these ideas need not fear that they will live out the remainder of their lives on the Island (except for ICFs). Many of these can be incorporated later, after we have built the house, have a place to live, and have saved up more. The heating system can be setup to use a ground source heat exchanger (the heart of the geothermal system) or solar hot water, and solar PV panels can be installed later as well. In the meantime, we can incorporate passive solar design without much investment, and we can highly insulate the basement walls to gain some of the same benefits that ICF walls enjoy. And we can keep dreaming.