SOLAR FREEDOM INT'L INC.'s LIST OF 30 STUPID THINGS TO AVOID WHEN DESIGNING FOR EFFICIANCY
Copyright 2008 Solar Freedom Int'l Inc. Excerpt from “Stick it where the sun Shines” Written by Craig Shearer
I may as well tell you. I could have made this title more politically correct. In fact the editor in
me said “don’t offend anyone” but the teacher in me said “don’t pull any punches just say it
how it is.”
As you can see the teacher won out. The truth is there are some things that seem so common
sense to me that I wonder how these stupid ideas got started in the first place.
Besides now that I have revealed this list you can avoid a disapproving head shake or a roll
of my eyeballs if we ever have a chance to meet.
Now it may be possible that you have tried some of these things. I promise we won’t send any
of our solar thugs to harass you. Just change your bad habits before any of the children in
your life start to duplicate you.
There is a story about how we can all get caught in our habits. A woman is getting a pot roast
ready for cooking and her young daughter is helping. The woman cuts of the end of the roast
and throws it to the dog and then puts the roast into the cooking pot. The child watching says
“why did you do that mom?” and the woman answers “well dear that is the way my mother
cooked a roast.” The girl wasn’t satisfied with the answer so she phoned her Grandmother to
ask why she cut the end off the roast off before cooking. Her Grandmother told her “because
that is how my mother always did it.” The girl still was not satisfied so she went to see her
Great Grandfather who was still alive and asked why her great grandmother used to cut the
end off the roast before cooking it. He told her that they only had one very small cooking pot
and very often the roast would not fit in the pan unless she cut the end off.
This list of stupid things is just to help all of us remember to stay thinking and not get caught
in old habits that no longer serve us
Take this list as a good opportunity to laugh at yourself and next time you see someone else
doing anything on this list you might suggest they purchase a copy of this book because you
found some amazing insights between the covers.
Stupid thing 1
I may as well start by wading through the “sh*t”. In 2007 I was asked to do a short introduction
to my work in the world of solar energy in front of 250 people. I had a list of accomplishments
describing some of the designs you are going to learn about in this book. As I was going
through a brief list I got to the part where I was describing the prototype of our very first solar
incinerating toilet, and our solar venting system for composting toilets, and our solar
composting porta john. I realized about that time that I was mostly into Sh*t and so I said as
much. Well a roar of laughter went up in the room and I realized we are all so full of sh*t in
one way or another and it has to get taken care of or dealt with in order that we don’t suffer
through another bubonic plague. That brings us to the subject of one of the stupidest ideas
we as humans have ever dreamt up.
Defecating in our water supply!
The problems to me are obvious and the systems we have established to make all our sh*t
disappear without a trace are engineering feats of massive scale. But what does this have to
do with energy you say?
I will give you a few stories and insights later in the book about solutions to the stupid idea but
for now lets stick this where the sun shines and talk about the energy required to get rid of our
sh*t.
First you have to imagine the energy required to sh*t in the woods. None right?
Now imagine the energy required to walk to your nearest body of water. If you live beside a
lake or river you are fortunate. If not imagine getting ready for work and heading out the door
with your one gallon pails in each hand. You stroll down the street towards the nearest natural
water supply in the area where you live. You scoop up a couple of gallons of water in your
pails and along with all the other people that morning you all take the long walk home to your
waiting toilet bowl. You toss your water in and give it a flush. How far did you have to travel?
Were the pails heavy? If you had to get your water in this way it would not be long I bet before
you started joining the dog in the backyard in the morning.
Now consider the cost in resources, time, and energy required to establish the underground
infrastructure to do the same job.
All of this in every modern city on the planet when in every case with the help of the sun we
could compost or incinerate the stuff right in our own back yard so to speak. You will read
more on this in the chapter about why to unplug from your sewer lines and solar composting
toilets. In addition I have included plans to build your own.
Stupid thing 2
I wish I had a penny for every hot water appliance all across North America and Europe that
did not have a heat recovery system built into the sewer stack. Your utility company loves you.
Every time you pay to heat your water and let it run down your drain your utility company sits
and rubs their hands together with a wad of your money. Not only that but in the cold climates
such a huge volume of your money in the form of your hot water helps the infrastructure of the
utility companies sewer lines to stay well above freezing all the way to the treatment plant.
Dumping hot water that you paid to heat up using our planets precious resources is far
from brilliant. I am sure you would agree. I have a friend who manufactures heat recovery
systems for grey water. They are simple to install and pay for themselves in a very short time.
Even just letting your bath water cool off to room temperature before pulling the plug would
save you money.
Stupid thing 3
How many times have we let aesthetics play a part in our decision making? Let me be clear I
am not opposed to beauty and order but there are times things go too far. I just heard a story
the other day about a city municipality who has a bylaw outlawing the use of outdoor
clothes lines. The reasoning is that they disturb the eye and lower the image of the
neighborhood. The appliance companies are overjoyed at a decision like this. Imagine the
increase is sales for one of the highest energy using appliances in your home in a city with
these kinds of bylaws. Not to mention the increased energy consumption by the people living
there. Take your pick you can purchase an electric clothes dryer for less than $1000.00 and
for every hour of operation it costs you as much as $1.00 lets say you have your dryer
working for you for 4 hours per week. That works out to $208.00 per year! How many years
do you plan on drying your clothes? You do the math. A piece of rope will cost you at best
$10.00 and should last 20 years. The sun and wind are free. Clothes lines or solar clothes
dryers as I like to refer to them are one of the most amazing and overlooked solar appliances.
They are simple,natural, work well, the clothes smell great coming off the line and it gets
people out of the house and in community together. If you are one of those people that is
embarrassed to show off your underwear in public we will design a patented privacy solar
clothes dryer just for you at a very special premium price! How does $1000.00 up front and
$208.00 per year for the rest of your life sound? (More on solar dehydration schemes later)
Stupid thing 4
I know that you have never done this however imagine this common scene in suburban
America.
It’s a hot day in the summer and your driveway and sidewalk have been covered in dirt. You
think to yourself I may as well give it a clean. So you proceed to roll out the garden hose. Turn
on the tap with a good twist and proceed to wash the sidewalks and driveway down with
water. This job is a pleasure to do. The spray from the hose cools things down and you get to
relax and let the water do the work a broom could do and all without the sweat and the dust. It
will take a good hour as you sharpen the spray on the hose to clean out a crack. You smile
over at your neighbor and nod as she rolls out her hose as well. The two of you are enjoying
the sun and the water together. In the meantime all that fresh water had to be pumped out of
a water supply cleaned to drinking quality and pumped great distances under pressure using
a great deal of infrastructure and energy resources only to end up cleaning a sidewalk to meal
quality sanitized standards. While a child dies somewhere in the world from water that is unfit
for human consumption during that hour you are cleaning your driveway.
Stupid thing 5
For every square meter of surface area on the earth the sun, in it’s infinite generosity, can
give us 1000 watts of usable energy in the form of light. That is a lot of light and a lot of
potential for power! How many office buildings, Industrial structures and homes make use of
electricity for lighting during the daytime hours? How many building designs exist that have
not considered the lifecycle cost of poor daytime lighting. Using electric lights in the
daytime when natural light could have been used instead with simple forethought in the
planning stage is just plain stupid. Need I say more to make this point. Take a walk through
your living and working spaces in your own mind and try to get an idea of where you can add
some daytime lighting. Add a window or a light pipe use lighter paint or mirrors and other
reflective surfaces to move light deep into buildings.
Stupid thing 6
Did you know that something like 60% of the most frequently used appliances in your home…
things like DVD players, CD players, radios, computers, televisions, clocks and timers,
telephones, video games, cell phones, thermostats and security systems, thermostatic
controls etc. use low voltage power to operate? Many of them require 12 volts or less to
operate. Because most homes in Affluent cultures are designed to use 110Volts and 220 volts
we suffer great inefficiency losses in the conversion of this energy….Most of the equipment as
well as lighting in these homes runs cooler and more efficiently on 12 volt power. It just so
happens that most solar Photovoltaic (PV) panels produce 12 volts. Even still if the
conversion happened in a home central converter and came out of the wall at 12 volts all
these small appliances would no longer require their own small transformers. They would
operate many times more efficiently and be less costly to purchase. Not to mention saving
you a whole pile of money to operate. A single personal computer for example uses about 24
to 30 amps every hour it is on….in full use and in sleep mode about 25% of that amount. On
the other hand a laptop computer uses about 6 to 10 amps every hour. Why? The answer is
simple. One is designed for efficiency and one is not. Now let me ask you this. If we can
design for efficiency but we don’t design for efficiency then how can this be anything but
a stupid thing?
Stupid thing 7
I had some one in my office the other day telling me that he wanted to have a home that was
designed to be very efficient. He shared that he was so tired of being owned by the utility
company and wanted to use the sun to heat his home. As I began to ask questions about the
design of his home he explained that it had a great view of the lake to the North West. He had
designed the home with very large windows to the North West. In this part of the world the
winter winds come from the northwest. And the sun comes from low in the South. I pointed
out that in order to meet his goal of energy efficiency he may have to consider moving most of
the glazing in the design to the South and re orient the building to run long side from East to
West. (If you are in the southern hemisphere you will do the opposite and have your sun wall
exposed to the North) This client was shocked that I might suggest that after paying so much
for the lot why would he not build to take advantage of the view. In the end we reached a
compromise. The point here is this. So many buildings are built with absolutely no thought as
to the design and orientation for passive solar gain that it begs the question again who is the
more intelligent species…..The Sunflower who tracks the sun from morning to evening or the
human who builds a home on the north side of the mountain and over sizes the heating
and lighting systems to compensate for living in the dark? Incidentally it is possible to
design a neighborhood and the buildings in it to allow for enough sun space for every home.
In addition it is theoretically possible with design alone to heat a building in our cold Canadian
Climate using only the heat from the sun! It does require however a lot of planning and
forethought and some pretty radical design changes from what we are used to. In real estate
circles they say that the important thing is location, location, location. When it comes to prime
Solar real estate the saying takes on a whole new meaning and is probably one of the most
important factors in beginning solar design work. Second to that is design, design, design
which includes materials, embodied energy, lifecycle costs, and floor plan layout more on
those later.
Stupid thing 8
Where do you live? What building materials are available to you locally? As transportation
costs rise with the cost of fuel so does the cost of building materials that have to be
transported a great distance. In addition to the cost for the builder the cost in embodied
energy is very high. Therefore the cost to the planet is high. Embodied energy is the energy
that is used in the manufacture of any physical material. For example the sand you dig up in
your back yard and use as plaster for you walls has very low embodied energy. Bringing in a
marble countertop from Italy when you live in Canada has a very high embodied energy.
Building cedar homes on the prairies when the closest cedar tree is thousands of miles
away or using straw bales to build a home in the Rocky Mountains are just plain stupid
ideas. Choosing materials from within your bioregion is a must for good sustainable low
embodied energy designs.
Stupid Thing 9
How may times have you heard or seen of flood waters overtaking huge areas of land and
sweeping them clean of the occupants? Sometimes “acts of god” happen in areas where you
would never expect them to happen and where they have never before happened in history.
In this example I am not talking about those types of floods.
I had a client a few years ago who had purchased some land on a very obvious flood plain.
They came to me for some passive solar design consulting and at the time it was not worth
me mentioning the obvious oversight. In fact the area is known to flood every 50 years or so
and they knew it. The view however looking up the river is breathtaking. Now I don’t know
about you but building a home is a very large and demanding undertaking it also is the largest
expense most people have in their lives. How does it make sense in anyway to build on a
known floodplain? It cost them an additional huge sum to build a raised mound on the
property in order to meet the flood plain requirements for building there. The foundation
design needed to be more robust and required much more material and was expensive to
engineer. By the way the following spring the site did flood and even though the home was
high enough on its artificial hill to avoid damage. The roads to and from suffered greatly.
Stupid thing 10
In the same vein as the above story a few years back my brother bought a ranch for his
horses and the home on the ranch is a beautiful home. It is very well made and finished
wonderfully. The home was built by the previous owners and is a very tall building. It is three
stories high to the west and the rest of the house has about a two thirds exposure in all other
directions. As I said it is a very beautiful home on a calm day in the summer. However there
are very few calm days in this area and the winter winds are bitter from the North West. The
heat loss this home suffers in the winter months because of this exposure is tremendous!
Building a three story home in a windy flat location is the opposite of smart in my opinion.
It sticks up like a stiff and frozen inukshuk on the flat prairie.
( inikshuk is an Inuit word describing a humanoid stone statue built as a landmark on the flat
frozen tundra to guide travelers toward home).
The home does have one advantage though….Like the inukshuk you can always find your
way home in a snow storm.
Stupid thing 11
In my field we often talk about “footprint” this refers to the amount of space something takes
up on the land or on the floor plan of a home however it can also mean the kind of impact we
have on everything else around us. Everything has a footprint and leaves a footprint on the
planet in someway. One example is the way human activity on the planet has helped speed
up the warming trend. You could say the footprint we are leaving as humans on the evolution
of the planet is a warming curve like no other in the planets evolutionary history. Some
footprints are temporary some last a little longer and some could last for a long long time.
Take these three examples: walking on a beach, having a campfire, building a home and
building a nuclear power plant. Which one has the most lasting impact? The power plant has
the largest footprint because the residue from this sort of activity has the longest lasting
impact than anything else we have done on the planet to date. It will have impact beyond a
hundred thousand years.
Why is this important? In my view it is not really. We can do what ever we want anytime we
want and with whatever resources we want. Our life spans as humans are short and we can
experiment with our spaceship planet earth while we are here and there will always be
someone else, our children and grandchildren, to come along after us to clean up the mess
we make.
In the end it is all part of evolution. So that’s life.
However when we do not consider our actions for the long term we diminish our own
selves and our own integrity and our own sense of fair play and community…..to me that is a
real stupid thing to engage in. Plan for the long term and reduce your footprint when
designing for efficiency.
Stupid thing 12
Here is something that follows the last stupid thing pretty closely. Industrial, commercial, and
material designers are good people. They are the people who give us all the gadgets that
promise to make our lives easier. They are the inventors. They are the people who decide on
the longevity of products and the materials with which they will be made. These are the folks
who deliver the goods so to speak. They are the ones that use creativity, innovation, and
visualization to design products that add value to our lives. I am one of the people in this
category. In this category are some of the greatest thinkers of of the modern age.
Here is what happens to good people. Sometimes they get hurt and confused and begin to
use their talents for destructive purposes instead of constructive purposes. Sometimes this all
happens unbeknownst to them or those around them.
You and I and the choices we make drive the demand for products. If someone dreams up a
stupid idea and everyone sees how stupid it is and nobody wants that stupid thing then it
never gets off the work bench. There is nothing worse than producing poor quality items
that have very little long term value and have to be thrown out in less than two years.
Between the designers and you and I are the marketers…..they can make a stupid idea fly by
changing popular opinion.
You and I must be very discerning about the things we buy , the choices we make and what
we market and stand behind because it is what we do that will influence everything else. Pay
more for quality and demand quality. It will always be worth the extra money you invest
because the thing you purchase will do the job for you.
Many of us have a habit of pointing the finger outward and saying “they” should do something
about this or that. We have all asked the question who “they” are. The simple answer is “they”
are YOU!
Make good sound decisions on every purchase. Think about its impact. Stand for something
or you will fall for anything. Don’t believe a word I say. Use your experience to guide you.
Keep you head up and to quote an old childhood friend. Oh the places you will go!
Stupid thing 13
It has been calculated that a home built in North America in the 1950’s has enough leaks in it
that if you consolidated them it would be like cutting a square meter of wall out of the home
and leaving it open all year round. Today we know a lot more about keeping heat in a home.
This includes a well designed building envelope without leaks, reducing conductive losses
through building materials. Increasing insulation amounts and controlling air to air exchange
and venting. Not to mention good passive solar home design.
Yet due to our short term thinking when reviewing our building material options and
construction costs we generally go looking for the lowest prices. I would argue that this is a
fundamentally flawed economic view of building and designing shelter.
The cheapest buildings built even today with all our advanced knowledge are the most
expensive to heat light and maintain over the long haul. In ALL cases good design and well
chosen construction techniques along with quality materials and workmanship will reduce
your ongoing input costs by 30% to 70% over the lifecycle of that building and that could
amount to hundreds of thousands of your hard earned dollars! Over design and overbuild
from today’s “standard” The building industry will eventually catch up!
Many people are too cheap to hire a top notch designer complaining that I charge too much. It
is true I am very expensive. I am also very good at saving my clients hundreds of thousands
of dollars in energy costs over their lifetimes. You must decide right now to invest in your
project up front in order to obtain long term rates of return on your investment. I am sorry but
there is no way to cut a few corners and expect better than average results. I hope this one
didn’t hurt too much!
Stupid thing 14
I would make a bet with you that if you had a bag lunch in your hand and you left your office
building to look for a spot to sit and enjoy your lunch hour you would look for a clear sunny
spot with a view and a few shade trees to give you the option of direct sun or shade. In fact
studies have shown that this is what people will consistently choose over a park or sitting
area that lies in the shadow of a tall building. Yet when designing for living and working
space most designers do not even consider designing useful out door space. Places for
people to enjoy the sun. It is a little known fact that human beings are solar powered entities.
All our food is grown by the sun and we seem to feel better if we get direct sun once and a
while. In fact we need the sun to help us produce Vitamin D. In our modern culture useful
outdoor space, places where people would gather to sit and enjoy a sunny day and one
another are considered much too “valuable”. Prime real estate, as it is known, is crammed
more and more tightly with buildings leaving less and less space for outdoor enjoyment. Often
in larger cities we leave no green zones or buffer zones between residential and commercial
areas leaving the border zones busy, noisy, and dark shady places that must have a negative
impact on the solar occupants! Not to mention that without proper sunspace you can
hardly design for energy efficiency. Designing proper sunspaces for each building and
considering the impact of shading on existing buildings or homes when new construction is
planned must be a prime consideration in the minds of municipal planners as we look to the
future.
Stupid thing 15
What do refrigerators, air conditioners and ground source heat pumps all have in common?
They all require a tremendous amount of energy in the form of electricity to operate. They all
require a tremendous amount of energy to manufacture and we all love them. What if we took
these brilliant ideas out of the dark ages and started to think outside the box a bit to see if we
could actually make them more efficient?
Let me give a few examples of how we misuse these wonderful technologies.
Kitchens designed with the fridge and stove side by side. The fridge is trying hard to stay
cold while the oven is loosing heat right next to it. Air conditioners set for 68 degrees in
mid summer and furnace thermostats set for 72 degrees mid winter instead of the
reverse. Large ground source heat pumps recommended for heating a home instead of
designing for efficiency and using passive solar to reduce or in some cases eliminate the size
of pump required.
Later in this book you will get some real practical common sense ideas of how to make these
appliances more efficient or eliminate them completely. Some of them will call for a radical
departure from your current way of thinking and will involve your participation. The question is
are you ready for change or are you just tire kicking here? ( oops there is the Mafia thug in me
coming out)
Stupid thing 16
This may only apply to those of us who live in the colder climates or at least those of us in the
world who live in a home with a basement.
The basement was originally designed to store the seasons vegetables as “cold storage”
within the living space so you did not have to trudge through the cold and snow to get food
from the outdoor root cellar. Soon we began to house the utilities for the home in that space
as well but not much else. When basements were first built they were usually dirt walls and
dirt floors…The house above sat on a perimeter foundation of stone or concrete. As
basements evolved we began to use the wall of the basement as the foundation wall for the
house. Then concrete floors started to evolve. It was never considered that anyone would live
in that underground dark and damp space. However as we developed technology to brighten
up the underground space and reduce the dampness. People began to use the spaces as
living spaces. Today it expected that a basement will contain at least some living and working
spaces. The interesting thing is that in most cases basements are still very cold in the winter
months. In order to make the space livable year round most people insulate the cold walls
using an insulated false wall next to the concrete basement wall. In earlier times I have
even done it myself! However this is one of those quick fix stupid ideas. It is what I would call
waste of good materials not to mention a waste of a perfectly good heat sink. There are a few
people beginning to insulate foundation and basement walls on the outside (a good idea) yet
they also continue the old habit of covering up the inside walls as well with an insulated wall. I
recommend other solutions to my clients that save them time money and materials, keep the
basement wall available to act as a heat sink and reduce the heating costs of their home.
Read more in the chapter on Passive solar design.
Stupid thing 17
Thank the sun gods for well made efficient masonry heaters and wood stoves for heating.
Wood is a carbon balanced fuel because it is burned with in the same generation as it is
grown. This will keep the carbon balance stable and not add to global warming as long as we
foster the protection of the worlds forests at the same time. There are stoves that burn wood
gas that can be used for cooking indoors without the smoke associated with a wood fire. We
have developed good technologies in this area and they are improving all the time. However
some homes still have old wood burning “fire places” and old wood stoves these are nice
to look at and gather around but do not believe for a minute that they will add heat to a home.
They take more warm air out of the house as they burn than the warmth they will add to your
romantic heart as you lie on your bearskin rug in front of them with your own true love or the
family pet as the case may be. Even when they are not being used they continue to draw a
steady flow of warm air out of your home which over time will cost you a fortune in heating.
Stupid thing 18
Houses built in North America are as light as air! Relatively I mean. Compared to houses built
with earthen blocks, concrete, brick, stone, adobe blocks, rammed earth etc. homes made
using a stick frame are very cheap to build and are an efficient use of material and
yet…..there it is….. The “and yet”….and yet they fall very short when used in designs that are
better suited to using the suns heat as the main source of heat. What you have to remember
is that when you are using the suns heat you have to work within the parameters given. In
other words when you need the most heat from the sun in the coldest times of the year there
is usually a lot less of it available to you to heat your home. The cycles of nature are best
worked with instead of against which means we have to come to terms with our “now”
attitudes. For example there is a thing called a thermal flywheel. It is at work all the time. It
was here before humans and will be one of the few things left post human existence. It shows
up as a time lag between seasons. During the summer heating cycle the heat from the sun
can penetrate and warm the earth to a depth of 20 feet. As winter approaches that heat
begins to dissipate as the earth cools. This time lag before all the heat can fill the earth bank
or leave the earth bank creates this thing we call a thermal flywheel. Our job is to take
advantage of that in our building designs. But we generally don’t consider using naturally
occurring phenomenon in our design process and that is, in my opinion, a serious error in
judgment if we want to design for efficiency.
Stupid thing 19
Whenever you build shelter in areas where the climate is a bit more severe, that is very very
hot or very very cold, it makes logical sense to design entrance ways to keep the elements
out as an occupant enters or leaves the dwelling. On farms people call them mud rooms.
Some call them porches or stoops. New homes built in this decade rarely include this design
element. A space between the outside weather and the inside climate, isolated by two doors,
of a home or building allows an interface for the mixing of air between the two. The home side
looses only as much of its climate to the outside as the isolated entrance way can hold.
Imagine the amount of heat pouring out of an open door when the temperature is minus 20 as
the occupant comes and goes through that opening when there is nothing to contain the
outflow! In many cases we design an additional element into this space. A step or two up into
the heated space from the enclosed entrance way provides a further block for cold air
entering the home because the cold air hugs the floor and the warm air rises. A step or two up
and a little higher ceiling allows the mixing to occur in that space after the occupant is all the
way into the building. Have a look at all the buildings that are built without this isolated
entrance way and ask yourself how this makes any sense from an energy point of view.
Stupid thing 20
Ok so let us talk about appliances. Newspapers and flyers and advertising of all kinds give us
thousands of new options for our comfort and convenience. Most of these use energy. I have
a few opinions about this. Comfort is highly overrated and overstated and when you buy the
myth of comfort it will cost you dearly because you will mortgage all the rest of your life to pay
for it. Comfort is just too expensive. How much more comfortable can you be if you live in one
of the affluent countries? Let’s get real about our need for comfort. In my opinion you have
been duped if you have an electric can opener a hair dryer, an electric toothbrush or any
other labor saving device or time saving device that takes away what last bit of exercise you
may have gotten that day. Is it any wonder we are too many pounds overweight and feeling
unhealthy. A quote that comes to mind when I see this stuff is “Give me a break” You actually
want me to spend my precious hard earned resources on a labor or time saving device so
that I have to go back to work for a few more hours to pay for and in the meantime It allows
me to be even more passive than I already am in my life so that I can die a slow death as my
body wears out from lack of exercise? There is nothing worse to me that wasting our time, the
planets resources, your effort, and your health not to mention the electric energy required to
operate these stupid throw away in a few year devises. Call me strange or old fashioned if
you like but I am planning on living a long time without these extremes.
Stupid thing 21
Have you ever been into a lighting store? Have you ever noticed how fashion determines our
choice of lighting and have you ever noticed how poorly some lighting is designed? Take
chandeliers for example. This form of lighting is based on some old idea when hoisting
candles up to the ceiling on a wagon wheel was a good way to spread the candle light
through the room. Nostalgia overtakes us and we purchase one of these ill designed lights
only to find the inefficient bulbs point directly at the ceiling instead of down into the room
where the light is needed. Any lighting that does not provide efficiency through design
and is designed to suit the task is a stupid idea. In addition we all must be scared of the dark.
Light pollution is becoming a huge concern for migrating birds and is causing a disruption in
human and animal sleep patterns. Here are some examples of the misuse of such a precious
and costly resource. Office buildings lit up all night with no one in them. One person in a
home reading a book that keeps all the lights in all the other rooms on. A farm yard light on all
night long. Why do we need lights on while we are sleeping? Use lighting wisely and design
it properly and in addition choose the most efficient form possible. LED solid state lighting is
becoming the wave of the future because it produces no heat. Uses a tenth the energy and
can last 100,000 hours before needing a replacement. Thank you Mr. Edison we are grateful
for your contribution and now you would be proud to see your incandescent light bulb has
become a dinosaur.
Stupid thing 22
Sometimes people call my office looking to heat a space or heat some water using solar. I
have noticed a certain box that we have been conditioned to think within. These people
wonder if they can get enough solar panels (meaning solar panels that produce electricity) to
heat this space or water with electricity. Even though we have become accustom to electric
baseboard heaters and electric water heaters they generally are not the best option for heat.
The closer you can get to the original source of heat for heating the better. Whenever energy
changes forms it usually changes into multiple forms. Lets look at the coal industry as an
example because much of the electricity produced on the globe still is produced using
coal. The first step is to get the coal out of the ground which requires a tremendous amount
of energy to mine and transport the stuff to the location where it is to be burned. Next when
the coal is burned it produces heat to turn water into steam. Much of the energy is wasted in
heat loss. Then as the steam turbine begins to produce electricity it has energy losses
through friction. When the electricity is changed to a high enough voltage for transport in
power lines there are conversion losses. As the electricity is transportet through powerlines
for hundreds or thousands of miles there are line losses. Once the electricity reaches its
destination, say your home, it requires changing again in order to reduce the voltage to
household levels of between 110 and 120 volts again conversion losses. Now when you turn
on your water heater or your baseboard heater you are heating your space. Consider the
energy cost of the infrastructure to deliver all of this and the fact that burning coal is very
polluting and you have one of the stupidest ideas to create heat on the planet.
The point of this is that if you need heat and the sun produces a tremendous amount of heat
daily then all you have to do is install the right equipment on your home for that conversion of
the suns energy to heat your space and your hot water. More on this in a later chapter.
Stupid idea 23
Inefficient ground source heat pumps without solar electric. You would think that a new
technology would become popular because it does a job better than an old technology. You
may or may not have heard of “Geothermal” energy. In the green niche energy sector this
refers to a way of using the heat that is in the earth to heat a home or building. I would like to
point out a few inconsistencies. Firstly the name “Geothermal” is misleading. Geothermal heat
is defined as heat that comes up through the earths crust in some form. Like a hot spring or a
volcano or something of that nature. In truth squeezing heat out of the earth where there is no
natural wellspring of heat requires a “ground source heat pump”. This device is much like a
giant refrigerator compressor. Refrigerator compressors are very difficult to build without
requiring fairly large energy inputs. In fact the refrigerator is one of the largest energy users
in your home ( if you are lucky enough to live where you can afford one and to pay the bills)
So imagine that you want to heat a home using heat from the earth. The first thing you would
do is drill a bunch of holes and install many feet of pipe underground that will circulate a
liquid. Remember the footprint of install and materials here as well. On the inside of the home
you will install a large ground source heat pump. Now at this writing the electricity to run the
pump is much less expensive than the gas, oil, or propane needed to run a conventional
furnace even though ground source heat pumps take a tremendous amount of energy to
operate. It is also easier and less expensive in most cases to install a power line into a
location that a gas line. This means that this piece of machinery is currently less expensive to
operate for the new owner but not necessarily less expensive for the planet. Does that make it
a good idea? Many would say so. Particularly those who sell and install them. The age old
story is that if its cheaper today it is a better idea. In my experience and in my opinion these
systems are only short term fixes unless of course they are combined with a bank of solar
panels or a wind generator that is large enough to produce all the electricity the pump
requires during the heating season. By the way the heating season in cold climates always
has much less daylight and sun to provide for the electricity needs of the pump so the bank of
solar panels will need to be oversized. This combination is a brilliant use of technology but
again in my opinion installing a ground source heat pump without the solar end is like a car
without a steering wheel.
Stupid Idea 24
Everybody likes a nice green lawn. Especially if you grew up as I did playing shinny, tag
football, golf and baseball all in season. The trouble with lawns is they are overused as
ground cover and under utilized for the play space they offer. They are sterilized and agonized
over and for what? Most of the time lawns are void of human activity and take up valuable
space where food could be grown or other more biodiverse plant species could be planted to
attract and feed the wild things we love to see so much. The stupid thing is where lawns are
used as ground cover and nothing more. It is the waste of resources required to maintain
them. The time fuel and energy to keep them cut and the amount of water required keeping
them green not to mention the embodied energy of installing underground sprinklers. There
are many other more intelligent options when designing for efficiency.
Stupid Idea 25
Have you ever been fortunate enough to have a warm shower outside while basking in the
sunshine and fresh air? If not you have no idea what you are missing out on! Without getting
too philosophical on you I believe part of the reason we are so hard on the planet from an
environmental point of view is because of our disconnect from nature itself. I have taught
solar studies in the public school system through an environmental program south of my
home town. It always amazes me that 12 and 13 year olds have no clear answer to where the
sun comes up when asked. It is shocking to me that someone would not know exactly where
the sun comes up on the summer and winter solstice and at the equinoxes and on any month
in between and that there exists this thing called solar noon…and so on. One can obtain this
information without being told or reading it in a book. One can obtain it simply by observing
these things over the years of their life. My point is this. Showering outside in your very own
solar shower is liberating in more ways than one even if it does surprise your neighbors. In
fact they may actually enjoy your solar shower more than you do! It will certainly motivate
them to come outside and enjoy the bareness of nature. You see what kind of a difference
you can make by leading the way?
Think of the water and energy you can save if you were to shower using filtered rainwater and
solar heat every day it was sunny. Showering indoors is only classified as a stupid idea
when the days are sunny and you could enjoy this activity outdoors. Later in this book you will
find plans for a very private outdoor solar shower that you can build yourself.
Stupid idea 26
There is a joke that goes something like this. Two guys meet in midair. One is speeding
toward his death because of a failed parachute and the other is speeding quickly toward outer
space. As they pass each other the one coming down yells hey do you know anything about
parachutes? The one going up answers no but do you know anything about gas BBQ’s?
Gas BBQs in my opinion are one of those convenient ideas that cost the environment a great
deal in exchange. Not only do they cost the environment but they cost you in other ways. It is
arguable that the over consumption of meat will kill you, slowly albeit, but kill you it will
according to recent studies. However so does over consumption in any form. Moderation is
the key to good health. BBQs encourage the consumption of grilled meat and they are
promoted for that reason. I don’t even want to mention the carcinogens produced in grilled
meat that is dialogue for a whole other book. Now, here is the rub as they say, metal BBQs
have a high embodied energy. In other words a tremendous amount of energy goes into the
production of these units. That is perhaps not the worst of it. It is you that has to pay for these
summertime appliances. The frequency that they are used varies according to the dietary
choices of the humans involved but generally they are only used a few months of the year in
colder climates. (one inefficiency not often considered when making a buying decision.
Another thing that remains constant is the units require an energy source in order to operate.
Which means the unit is becoming more expensive as time goes on. In addition many designs
are made to last a few seasons before they end up in a landfill so again we have shown how
wasteful we can be. As an option we have developed a solar BBQ or solar cooker that works
using the suns energy and can be used all year long. When you read the chapter on solar
cooking you will learn more about that story and in addition you will be able to with our
blueprints build one that you can begin to use as well. A well known Canadian David Suzuki
Most famous for the program “The nature of things” says that leaving our children with a
world we have messed up and ignoring our part in correcting our errors is a cop out. He says
that every time we model positive change it lends our children the hope required for that
change to come about. Why not vegetable stew cooked in a solar cooker for a start. Better yet
build one with your children or grandchildren.
This is a simple way to make a difference and learn a new way at the same time.
Stupid Idea 27
I am going to keep this short and sweet because I think by now you will get this without a long
explanation. If you design a home with the bedrooms in the south you cut off precious
daylight and heat from entering the rooms you use most throughout the day. With good
bedcovers bedrooms can afford to be cooler and darker. To many this makes common sense
but you would be amazed at how many homes are designed with the kitchens and living
spaces in the darkest part of the home and bedrooms toward the south. How can we do this
in good conscience given the amount of daytime activities that happen in these common
spaces? Well we don’t do it with consciousness, that is why this book is so popular, in many
cases we just need the obvious pointed out to us. Now that you know to avoid it when
designing for efficiency you won’t have to make that costly mistake.
Stupid Idea 28
Here is another one along the same lines. You might think that if you were designing a home
or office with usable outdoor space that you would plan to situate it with some sun and
pockets of shade in order for the humans to have a choice. You will notice that gardens do
not grow in the shade. Neither do people apparently. There are numerous example of poor
design everywhere once you understand a few basic things you cannot help but notice them.
Have you ever seen an office building that is tall enough to block the sun all day long with the
space for the people to have lunch and coffee breaks in the shadowed space behind the
building? You will observe that the people will take their breaks on the street where they have
access to the sun and the very expensive Zen gardens will be left isolated and unpopulated
all day long. This is a crazy waste of resources and can be avoided in all but very crowded
cities.
Stupid Idea 29
There is something about how we design shelter in this modern age that is having an impact
on community, family and the environment. I call it the “shelter of disconnect”. Ownership is
standard in North American culture. Each of us likes to “own” all of our own stuff. Our own car
our own lawnmower or own home our own etc etc. If we really want to design for efficiency
we may need to retrain ourselves to share. People used to build their houses so that they
shared a common wall or walls. The reason was that less material was needed if you could
share a couple of outside walls. In addition there was also less labor required and the two
home owners also would help each other. In the world today we are beginning to think about
lighting and heating costs as well as our environmental impact. Single unit dwellings are not
one of our best bits of modern thinking. Today you may find a family of four occupying a four
thousand square foot space divided further into isolated pods for the occupants (they all have
their own bedroom bathroom playroom and office). The only truly shared space within the
home is the kitchen. Perhaps if the trend continues we will have separate kitchens as well.
People grow up never really have to figure out how to communicate or share resources within
a home or a neighborhood or community.
When you are designing for efficiency you must ask the question. How much of what I am
doing can be shared within the home and with others in order to build community and reduce
my impact on the planet. Live work spaces combine offices where people work with their own
homes. Condominiums share roofs and resources. These are much better design alternatives
if your aim is efficiency.
Stupid Idea 30
Many people believe when the wars for oil are over we will begin to war over water. The
treatment of water is likely our greatest crime against our children.
We spend a lot of time money and energy transporting water, making it dirty, cleaning it again.
I have often challenged people to think about water as having a spirit. Water, besides clean
air, is our most precious gift. Without air we can last 5 to 10 minutes. Without water perhaps 8
to 10 days and yet we give little thought to how we can design for efficiency in this area. Did
you know in a temperate climate a thousand square feet of roof space can collect 30,000
gallons of water a year? Think about what this means from a design point of view. All the
water you could possibly use in a year falls directly on your roof. We have designed all sorts
of catch, hold and filter systems to reuse this water within the building being built. You will
read more about water in the chapter on Solar Water Purification Systems later in this book.