Tell me about your Dream Home

[NoShangriLa]

Originally posted by: Kaido
Just found another neato thing called "Solatube". It's like a skylight but with a tube and mirrors and stuff:

http://www.solatube.com/residential.php

There are a few pics on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=solatube

Tube skylight works great however it doesn't look as nice as traditional rectangle/square skylights if you look up at it because the shaft is shiny silver colour instead of the colour of your ceiling/wall.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: NoShangriLa

Originally posted by: Kaido
Just found another neato thing called "Solatube". It's like a skylight but with a tube and mirrors and stuff:

http://www.solatube.com/residential.php

There are a few pics on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=solatube

Tube skylight works great however it doesn't look as nice as traditional rectangle/square skylights if you look up at it because the shaft is shiny silver colour instead of the colour of your ceiling/wall.

I'd get it more for the light advantage. The place I'm at now is like 90% artificially lighted. It'd be nice to have sunlight in the room with such a small footprint.

 

[WT]

The whale house !!!

Check out that sofa .. it looks like the roots of a tree sprouting from the wall.

:thumbsup:

 

[NoShangriLa]

Originally posted by: K1052

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: K1052

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: gsellis
Kaido, go with the backup natural gas generator...

I have always wanted a house with a central, greenhouse garden that opens to the other rooms with a waterfall and pond.

When you build the house, remember that a master on the main floor design MUST have a guest bath more central to living and dining room. My other wants are a walk-in pantry, gas stove, large clothes closets in the Master, dishwasher on the left (right handed).

Can it store natural gas? I'm just concerned if I lose power in winter or something (it's happened before!), if the rest of the city services will go out.

Ever time we have lost power and water, we have had gas. You don't have to store it or worry about contamination like you do with a diesel supply. You also do not have to transport it. You could store it and run it off of LP. A bit easier to handle than diesel too. AND they make natural gas backup generators for homes, so you get economies of scale in your favor to set one up. Last time I saw them at Lowe's (2 years), $5k got one installed that would have the power to run the heat, freezers and other stuff in the house.

Edit - 45,000 watts! $11k. 16,000 watts are $4k for the generator.

Wow, that sounds really nice. Is it safe to keep in your basement or should it be out in a shed or something?

You can have either an above ground LP tank or get one buried. The generator should be in a separate shed or enclosure as they do occasionally catch on fire.

What fuel I would chose depends on the location of the house though I personally lean to diesel w/ in ground fuel storage in the 30K watt range.

:Q

It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I just rather not have it happen in my basement next to a 1,000+ gallons of diesel fuel.

Clean up cost for in ground leak is very expensive, and many insurance doesn't cover the environment clean up in their policy. Leak test is almost useless because it doesn't tell you the remaining life span of the tank or piping. The only way to know that you have a leak is when you have contamination that show up in the soil sample.

Personally I would forgo the electric generator unless you live in a remote place that have yearly power loss for weeks at a time. LNG, stove and/or fireplace, and gravity feed water cistern is more than adequate as a backup system.

 

[Kaido]

Clean up cost for in ground leak is very expensive, and many insurance doesn't cover the environment clean up in their policy. Leak test is almost useless because it doesn't tell you the remaining life span of the tank or piping. The only way to know that you have a leak is when you have contamination that show up in the soil sample.

Personally I would forgo the electric generator unless you live in a remote place that have yearly power loss for weeks at a time. LNG, stove and/or fireplace, and gravity feed water cistern is more than adequate as a backup system.

Yeah I dunno how often it would be used, even where I live the power only goes out once every few months maybe, and usually not longer than a day or half a day. I also checked out a friend's pellet fireplace the other day but have decided not to get one. It requires electricity, which kind of defeats the purpose of having it heat your house in the winter should the power go out. Plus he mentioned that it had trouble heating at low temperatures, and that it was really only good for heating an enclosed room and not a whole house or floor.

 

[DrPizza]

Location is more important to me for a dream home than the actual structure. I'd like to live in the country with relatively few neighbors, little to no traffic by my house, a decent chunk of land, and perhaps a pond or stream. Plenty of space to have some animals, and maybe even a garden large enough that I can come closer to being self-sufficient. <looks out window> I'm fairly happy with the place I've got now. Higher ceilings would be nicer, and in addition to the living room, I'd like to have a real home theater instead - and I will in a year or two; whenever I get around to another remodeling job.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

My dream home would be a shack in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, with a secret nuclear bunker located some hundred feet underground. The bunker would need to have plenty of storage for canned foods (refried beans, mmm...), water, and all of the various stuff I keep hoarded. So long as I could get electricity and the internet to it, I would be a very happy man.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Location is more important to me for a dream home than the actual structure. I'd like to live in the country with relatively few neighbors, little to no traffic by my house, a decent chunk of land, and perhaps a pond or stream. Plenty of space to have some animals, and maybe even a garden large enough that I can come closer to being self-sufficient. <looks out window> I'm fairly happy with the place I've got now. Higher ceilings would be nicer, and in addition to the living room, I'd like to have a real home theater instead - and I will in a year or two; whenever I get around to another remodeling job.

Oh definitely. I lived near a Fire Station when I was a kid, never again :Q