I recently received an email about two houses and the impact that our preconceptions can have.

As far as I can tell the details are for the most part true (according to Snopes.com). I could not find any rebuttals and found a variety of sources confirming the detail http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200703/CUL20070301c.html being one.

House #1 A 20 room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern n "snow belt" area. It's in the South.

House #2 Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville, Tennessee; it is the abode of the "environmentalist" Al Gore.

HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas; it is the residence the of the President of the United States, George W. Bush

Robert, I'd be careful before posting stuff with such poor sources.

What do you mean you "got an email?" from whom. You confirmation efforts don't seem to have borne much fruit.

CNS (Cybercast News Service) apart from being a service I've never heard of, has a website which is plainly driven by a political agenda which focuses on 'culture news,' and not, as its name would imply real news.

As annoyingly unreliable as the big news services are, they are more reliable than a web based "news" service like this. When you combine such unreliable sources with such an improbable story, it only reflects on your credibility. Having read many of your posts, your reputation is too good to trash by associating it with such a poorly sourced and dubious report.

And a quick hunt around shows csnnews.com is owned by this mob:

http://www.mediaresearch.org/

As you can this site has a distinct bias towards the right, in fact their "About Us" page (http://www.mediaresearch.org/about/aboutwelcome.asp) pretty much ensures that I trust them about as much as I trust any Socialist Alliance news site.

At a risk of using up another posting slot let me just correct the above post by replacing "csnnews.com" with the correct address "cnsnews.com"

RObert,
I am in the Arch. game, may I be of some assistance against these other crooners?
I think most of them have misinterpreted what you are aiming at.

If the story is incorrect I'll be happy to hear it. I could not find any rebuttals other than some justification as to why Gore's house would use more power than average - both he and his wife work from home. Extra people in and out due to security for an ex VP etc. Also Gore does buy carbon credits and pays extra for non carbon electricity.

The sources are not from sources I'm happy to put a large amount of trust in but are consistant enough to be worth paying attention to. Bushes critics are not denying the story about his house. Rather opposing views focus on changes Gore has recently begun to make (putting in solar panels and a geothermal heating system) and attacking Bush of his energy usage in his job (Air Force 1, the Iraq war etc).

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/g/gore-bush-houses.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254908,00.html
http://www.practicalenvironmentalist.com/energy-efficiency/perhaps-al-gore-should-ask-george-w-bush-for-help-in-making-his-house-more-energy-efficient.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/02/gore-v-think-tank-power-consumption-dig.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/is_george_bush.php
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0429-03.htm

There should be food for thought for us all in there aroubt the different choices people make in both private and public life.

R0bert

Okay before this turns into another "discussion". I would like to turn it into something constructive, what changes would you make to building codes to lower the ecological/energy footprint of new dwellings?

Also jumping on the constructive bandwagon, my first thought was we should get rid of some of the foolish restrictions imposed by councils and heritage listing rules. I grew up in an old part of Sydney where councils completely confound any enviroment friendly action, like the construction of roof mounted water tanks because they allegedly detract from the traditional streetscape (even from already hideously ugly back lanes and even where obscured by vegetation). So people in these areas are stuck between strict water restrictions and being prevented from doing anything to alleviate the problem by collecting rainwater (of which Sydney gets PLENTY).

Old policy objectives getting in the way of new social needs.

'cuse me, I'm still laughing....

RObert wrote:

"Bushes critics are not denying the story about his house. Rather opposing views focus on changes Gore has recently begun to make (putting in solar panels and a geothermal heating system) and attacking Bush of his energy usage in his job (Air Force 1, the Iraq war etc)."

I've got PLENTY of criticisms of Bush. Energy consumption doesn't even come up as a blip on the radar.

StG, fair call except my comments were in regard to the likely validity of the story not the general merits of either politician.

I was interested in the significant apparent difference in private choices vs public stance taken by both. I find it worth considering how often we assume that those on the other side are villans all the way through when in reality few are totally consistant either for doing good or doing harm.

As for the idea of using the thread to discuss government imposed restrictions that stop us doing better environmentally - great, I like it.

I don't know much about the building codes and where they still unreasonably restrict better choices. The drought in Queensland (he writes as it rains outside) has resulted in significant changes in restrictions on rainwater tanks and the use of greywater in urban areas.

A point that comes to mind is in regard to the requirement to use plumbers for certain tasks and the costs associated with that. Are there cost effective means we could use to make it easier for people to use collected rainwater inside the house without exposing the treated water system to contamination?

I got my state government water tank rebate in the mail today. A rebate that does not relate to how much I reduce my overall consumption by having that tank. Would rebates be better managed in a form that increased the rebate based on water savings over a period of time?

Can rebates be better setup to make them viable for the cash strapped - a letter of eligibility for the rebate so that the rebate amount was deducted off the purchase price and paid to the supplier. Are those two idea's in any way compatible?

R0bert

RObert, do the occupants of house 2 make good use of the methane
produced by the toilet of rotting decaying mass of excrement? Oh, No!
Still wasting precious water on a Cistern. Bathing in how much water?
So what, it takes energy to pump it up then pump it back! Costs money
In Grants to keep a brilliant Professor on Hand to Invent such cleaver
Things. Why can’t the rest of us have these?

ROBERT.. I hereby appoint you 'Junior prophet' :) well done.. I love it when such things are exposed.

JAMES Purser.....the simplest thing to change for improving our greenhouse situation in buiding codes would be:

1/ All lighting should be the high efficiency type
2/ Lighting should be powered from Solar based systems with battery backup.
3/ All houses should have a 'Solar Package' including the hot water, and perhaps 10 panels of solar electric and grid interactive inverter. The electricity wiring should have an automatic changeover to grid for lighting when the batteries go low.
4/ All hot water should be Solar based, gas boosted.
5/ No electric ovens or cooktops.

Hope that helps.

(P.S. I was in the alternative energy field for 10 yrs)

David,

Used to be fan of whole solar thing, but the last I read, solar cells cost so much in energy (tracing the manufacturing/mining energy costs) that the energy they produce during their working life (estimated to be not much longer than 20 years) scarcely pays it back.

I've also read sufficient panels to operate family home would cost upwards of $20,000 (for panels that last only 20 years) and that's $20,000 up front.

In effect, the energy usage saving is almost illusory but the cost is probably around 3 times the cost of the current supply. With your background in alternative energy are you aware of these issues? Are they real issues or have I been misinformed (I hope I have been).

Solar hot water systems are probably more efficient now than when I lived in a house with one (about 6 years ago). The experience was so bad, that its very seriously put me off the idea. The problem with it was that the backup was normal mains power instead of off-peak. Now I know the actual power usage is the same, but it did horrendous things to the cost. Winter time, our power bill would shoot up from about $300 qtr to around $700 qtr. We didnt use much heating (as lived out west where temps rarely dropped below 8degrees at night), in fact our main use was for airconditioning in summer to combat the 50degree heat. The only explanation we could come up with was the hot water system. We lived there for 3 years and it was the same every winter.

Boaz, I love all your generalizations, they invariably make me laugh.

>>1/ All lighting should be the high efficiency type
2/ Lighting should be powered from Solar based systems with battery backup.
3/ All houses should have a 'Solar Package' including the hot water, and perhaps 10 panels of solar electric and grid interactive inverter. The electricity wiring should have an automatic changeover to grid for lighting when the batteries go low.
4/ All hot water should be Solar based, gas boosted.
5/ No electric ovens or cooktops.<<

I live in an apartment, with no area available for solar panels. so 2, 3 and 4 are no help.

And 5 is out, there's no gas available nearby. They quoted $35,000 to supply it when we asked twenty years ago, heaven knows how much they'd want now.

But at least you didn't include a bible quote, so I should be grateful for small mercies.