An Architect, a Draftsman and a Water Systems Consultant Walk into a Yard...

The owner of the house says, "Hi Ernie, Hi Tony, Hi Bill..."

Yep, it was a little design party yesterday during the lunch hour. It was a big design party for the hour after the lunch hour. When we were all done we had:
*3 architects
*2 engineers
*1 seamstress
*1 jack and 1 jill of all trades, master of all

We are going to be able to preserve the existing foundation below what will become the "2008 Addition". That is good. The rest of the old garage has to be demo'd. That's unfortunate, but whereever possible, we're going to try to reuse the materials on the site.

I shut down my storage company over a year ago now. (i.e. I kicked out everyone that was storing stuff in the garage). Still, there's a lot of stuff in there. It pains me to throw out the oldish couches and other odd crap. Hopefully we'll find good homes for everything. Then it's down with the garage, up with a new structure, better insulation, safer electrical, etc. etc.

War, Pirates and Unchartered Territory

I went to the Borrego Solar Holiday Party on Thursday night. (My wife handles their payroll amongst other things.) I heard several interesting stats and numbers. One that stood out to me was that the amount of pv installed by Borrego on rooftops, awnings, etc. displaces the same amount of carbon as planting 5,000 acres of trees. I haven't actually broken that down, but if it proves out, that's pretty cool. Aaron, the CEO, called the employees solar warriors. Thanks for the party, Aaron! :)

That makes two different groups of solar warriors that I've come across recently. So with the various warriors (a few of whom double as pirates), along with these two Rocket Scientists I know, a very capable special forces geek unit and five Japanese Webmistresses that have been referred to as web ninjas (and may actually be ninjas), I see a very worthy militia of geeks assembling. I have a General in mind if the militia ever becomes a full-fledged Army of Geeks, but it would be premature to go down that path.

For now, more on the ninjas - along with their two male assistants and a wise old master (all presumably Japanese), the ninjas are collectively known as "Noriko's Okiron". These palindrome dropping ladies of the web go by the names Pirate, Little Red Wolf, Coffee T., Blondie and Mama-san. All proper armies have their crazy soldiers, the ones that storm the beaches and you have no idea what they're really capable of... well, that's Norko's Okiron. They'll be fun to watch.

By the way, I'm told that unless I post once a week, Driving To Zero is not a blog, just a website. I'm not so sure I even want a blog. But on occasion, such as now, I am going to address the readers of this "blog". So... Esteemed Readers of Driving 2.0, I did want to point out that nothing in the previous paragraphs is untrue, or even exaggerated, and it is certainly not irrelevant. I have too much respect for your time.

Enough about ninjas... now that I'm warmed up, I'm going to venture into unchartered territory. There is a lot of "Unchartered Territory" in Driving 2.0, but I'm going to call this next thought 'Common Sense: War, What It Is and How to Wage It.'

There are several examples in history of the folly of the two front war. The citizens of the United States of America are waging a two front war at the moment. At least we have two declared wars on two large "fronts". One is the War on Drugs. The other is the War on Terror. (I'm not counting the War on Crime and the War on Poverty because while these wars do flair up periodically, they've kind of reached a 'Cold War' status that the voting public seems to be satisfied with). Right. Which brings up the question - what is war? According to Wikipedia, "War is any large scale, violent conflict." OK, so the War on Drugs and Terror certainly check out. But what about the War all the solar warriors are lining up for?

More and more I hear people and politicians talk about a Manhattan Project type drive to kick our 'Energy Addiction'. And as I mentioned previously, people in the solar industry are talking tough, myself included. I don't think this particular struggle is going to get violent. But I do think you'll start hearing about a War on Global Warming or a War for the Planet or some other more catchy name.

Anyway, my point is we may be mustering our energy and resources for a third front, the Solar War. Soon enough we may find ourselves fighting on 3 fronts simultaneously, which leads me to an important question, which I ask in all seriousness: Can we afford to fight so many wars on so many fronts?

Regardless of the answer, an obvious follow up is which war is our most important war? Which war should receive the lion's share of our resources? We'll never all come to a consensus on this. But I do think we need to be realistic about our means and our priorities and try to focus our finite resources where they will do the greatest good. In the meantime, I'll be storming Coronado Island with my pirate buddies.

The plan is Coming Together

There is light at the end of the tunnel.

After a lot of thought, and then a lot of sketches, measurements, and 7 detailed drawings done with a 60 day free trial of Microsoft Visio, I finally met with an architect who I will describe as sharp, capable and positive. Ernie is going to present some ideas on Sunday and hopefully create the plans that will be permitted by the city. I have been surprised by how much you can do with readily available software these days. I saw a "home remodel" application at Costco for $80 that looked really good!

On another front, I believe I am about to get a letter from the Greater Golden Hill Planning Committee that says my house has no historic or cultural value! Yeah! That means I can actually get approval to start construction. Scott G. told me over the phone that the letter was actually in the mail to my physical address, so that is encouraging.

Since I need to replace the roof, Chris of Borrego came out and gave me some advice on making the house "PV ready" without spending a ton of money up front on panels. This makes sense because I can wire the house while everything is open and a mess... then if energy spikes and panel costs decrease, I can always put them in. Or if we get a PHEV that will be parked in the driveway and plugged in a fair amount during sunshine hours, it may make sense.

Bill of OB seems to know a thing or two about gray water systems, plumbing, piping, water and mechanical systems in general. That's great. The simple idea there is that each zone of the garden should hopefully get at least some water from a "zone" of the house (i.e. the laundry, the bathroom sink and shower, but not the toilet or the kitchen sink). Ideally gravity will be used and plants will be watered at least a foot below the surface of the soil.

I'd like to post the actual plans I have, but at the moment, posting files is a bit tedious. Still, Dave B, Rich C, Fletcher, and others continue to give valid advice and I have a hinting suspicion that within a month or so we are going to break ground on a very cool project.

Accurate Measurements

Yesterday was an exceptional day on at least 5 or 6 fronts. I'm a person that weighs my adjectives carefully, so that is an exceptional statement for me to make. Regardless, December 8th, 2007, the 10 year anniversary of The TP, the world's first online install publication, did not disappoint. It was also, apparently, the day of the year in which the sun rises the latest, (Fletcher?) though not to be confused with the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.

So thanks to Rob Q.'s advice, I have accurate measurements of my house, which I have plugged in to Microsoft Visio and am using it to make plans. I'm not sure if Visio is the best software application for architectural drawings (in fact, I'm pretty sure it's not), but it's good enough to let me play around and make pictures that anyone can understand.

Rich Ca. (that's California, not Canada) reviewed the plans last evening - his initial question was, "What are your needs?" which was shortly followed by, "Can you make due with less?" That might be the most basic premise of all sustainable buildings - to meet your medium term needs and plan for the long term needs with as few square feet as possible. Of course, being Americans we ended up with more square feet, but what can you do...