Retrofit Old Homes with Geothermal Earth Sheltering

Retrofit Old Homes with Geothermal Earth Sheltering
Related Topics:
Architecture, Efficiency, Green Living, Renewable Energy

I do not know why we all think that we need something new to save our way of life! Our homes and business building waste power in massive amounts and there is no need for it! If we earth berm our older homes and replace windows with double pane ones in old housing we can lower the cost of heat and cooling by. around 40% and if we build new housing in earth berm style we can cut that cost by up to 60% These are not expensive things to do.

Remodels like what we are doing now will pay it self back in 4 yrs, Earth berm has a long history of thousands of yrs. and is used in the north cold areas and the hot desert areas too. Most of the planet has used it in the past and its not the type of construction that takes long or trained employees to build. Earth berming does not have to look like the old idea of bermed houses. They can look like regular walls or Southwest style, or red brick or the same as what we think stick housing is now! Businesses can do it too as long as they have the space to. Also if we just make the building codes so that they use steel studs in walls inside and outside this will slow the demand for lumber and save trees. We do not need cap and trade to get the same results if there is no demand for lumber they will cut loging lumber its about money here. If we can get other nations to do this too it will save our forrest. If we set the meat import amounts to the levels of today there is not as much reason to slash and burn forrest.

It makes far more sense to reduce demade for the use of the forrest than to tax and police them and destroy local tribes and ways of life to bring in roads and development for policeing them. This bull about hi teck is just marketing. Why would one want to buy a solar system when the pay back now is 7 yrs to 9 yrs when earth berming is 4 yrs tops. If you already have an earth berm house and want solar that would make more sense to split the investment pay back time between the two for a better return on the investment.

As far as tax credits they are after the fact you have to spend it first to get it back if you have the taxable income. Why not just exempt sales tax on earth berm remodel project materials. With just showing your building permit. That is front loading the project not back loading it. If we think out of the box this can go much further here. I am not that much into internet things. But I do have a lot of other ideas that would help us out. E mail me if you want and I will let you know how my project is going and if you are in northern Az. you can visit and I will show you our alpaca ranch and earth berm project too. Ron Nyberg

How do you move the planet forward?
Submit Story
Tags:
architecture, berm, energy efficiency, geothermal, Green building, public policy, renewable energy, taxes

Get the Newsletter

Get inspiring stories to move the planet forward in your inbox!

Success! You have been added to the Planet FWD newsletter. Inspiring stories will be coming to your inbox soon.