I’ve been reading a delightful blog called 100khouse.com. This is the first hand experience of author Chad Ludeman, president of Postgreen, who is developing the 100khouse. The neatest thing of all is indeed the reality of green building. Some things go smoothly for Chad, others don’t, and some don’t go at all. I’m still not sure if he can build this green home for the 100k budget. It’s like a reality show of my dreams only in blog form. I would definitely stay up late for this one…
Recent posts detail this rollercoaster of triumphs and downfalls. A week ago, in his post titled “PV Solar Panel Quote for 100K House”, he laments the $53.9K price tag on the solar system he wished would make the house a zero-energy home (a solar/grid system that would produce enough power to cancel his electricity bill). My favorite line is a heart-wrencher “We wouldn’t even have enough room on the roof to fit enough solar panels…”
Check out Chad’s blog 100khouse.com and see what it takes to build a green home with a tight budget.
Well, one year down the road you should take another look at 100K house. The website is a great PR tool for the developers and while it might seem transparent there is something they are not putting out there in daylight. Namely that the first house might have all the green things going for it but they have truly messed up the design. A lack of eye for detail seems to be their problem. They claim it looks just like the rendering they posted on their website earlier. Anyone but the myopic will disagree. Look it up and see what a different building they created. Not so much a contemporary house as a bunker. What promised to be a Toyota has turned out to be a Trabant. A silk purse became a pig’s ear. Tragic. If green is to take off then all the aspects of design have to be attended to….as Mies van der Rohe said, “God is in the details.” No wonder they had to add the extra land to sell it.