Other Books

This is a list of "competing" books that I'll need to compare myself agains. Also gives me a nice idea of what has not been written about (e.g., a book for the masses).

The Renewable Energy Handbook: A Guide to Rural Energy Independence, Off-Grid and Sustainable Living (William Kemp)
http://www.amazon.com/Renewable-Energy-Handbook-Independence-Sustainable/dp/0973323329/

• While this is what I did, it's not the story I want to tell. I want my book to be applicable to 80, 90% of the American population.

Amazon: Books > Home & Garden > Sustainable Living > Energy Efficiency
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/5333/ref=pd_ts_b_nav

• My goal: to be listed on top of that list!
• This is a great listing of books that are related to what my book will be about.

Purpose of the Book

My book shall be

• inspiring & motivating - giving people the courage to make a few changes in their lifestyle to dramatically conserve resources: electricity, heating, cooling, and water.
• fun to read - entertaining, story-driven
• a good mix of anecdotes and hard facts
• timeless - it should be still relatively up-to-date and applicable 10 years from now, i.e., not really specific
• how-to-guide: step-by-step instructions about the
• pragmatic yet entertaining

My book shall be for

• home owners (what to do in your existing home)
• home buyers (what to look for when buying a home)
• home builders (what characteristics to embed when designing and building a home)

If you push designers really hard...

...they will get really smart!

Enough wind?

Okay, here's another post...

Since I've moved back into the house on December 30, I "serendipitously" have lived (electrical energy wise) solely from the small 1 kW wind generator. I say serendipitously, because the reason is actually procrastination...I "inherited" a broken propane backup generator (maybe partially due to me not doing regular maintenance, but probably also due to the generator not being started once a week for four or five weeks in the middle of the winter).

So, anyway, for the first three months of the year I cheated a little bit by turning off the electricity (i.e., shutting off my inverter) every time I left the house and keeping my food in the "cool" garage. Turning off the electricity not only saved me the fridge electricity (which actually only is about 0.5 kWh) but also my phantom loads, which still is about 70 W (of which about 35 Watts can be attributed to the Inverter on standby).

<...>

But for the last four to six weeks, I've actually had plenty of Electricity just from the wind...which makes me question again how big of a solar array I actually need (four or six 160-170 Watt panels).

Update

Well, I haven't posted in over 10 weeks....and now Spring is starting, but what do they recommend? Write everyday for 10, 20 minutes to get in the flow. Let's see how disciplined I can be. Maybe instead of playing Sudoku (my renewed addiction) I can just post a few more thoughts on what's happening....

So what has happened (house-wise) since February? Well, the news seems to be spreading and I'm getting more and more publicity -- which is good, because then there's more people who can find out about the simple things I did to lower my energy footprint without a reduction in comfort.

So here are the events that happened to date this year:

• In January 2008 I gave a presentation at the Rochester Public Library Fundraiser "Wine, Wit, and Wisdom". Among the five or six sessions, my presentation--along with a talk by Tim Penny--drew the most interest among the guests. The Post Bulletin photographer got a high-quality shot of me presenting on "SMART" conservation (simple, meaningful, achievable, realistic, and technology). It seems like I was comparing two aspects...hence my "preacher pose". (Although I'm not afraid to be accused of proselytizing what I am doing).
  
• Also in January 2008, on a cold, snowy Monday night, I gave a presentation to the Southeastern Minnesota Chapter of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) at Mann Hall in the Medical Sciences Building. Surprisingly enough, over 130 people showed up, meaning that not only the Pizza was gone 20 minutes before the presentation started, but also the auditorium was packed almost to the last seat. Typically their monthly chapter meeting draws about 20-30 people. As I found out after the meeting, people drove from as far as Austin (40 miles southwest), Faribault (50 miles northwest), and La Crescent (70 miles southeast).
  
• Last week, during Earth Day Week, I was invited by an Environmental Engineer at the local IBM facility here in Rochester to give a Noon presentation about my house. Again, over 120 people showed up.
  
• This Sunday, May 4, I will give a tour to a group of "Advanced Placement Environmental Studies" students that my friend Sue and fellow Eagle Bluff board member is teaching.
  
• Next Tuesday, May 6, I am going to give a presentation at a local community college, the Rochester Technical and Community college. This speaking arrangement was organized by my friend Alex, the same who also helped me tremendously with building the house.
  
• Next Friday, May 9, I will then give a tour to 15 participants of a class at Eagle Bluff titled "Living Green" which is part of Eagle Bluff's "Women in the Outdoors" weekend.
  
• On May 10, then, I have a public Open House from 9 AM to 5 PM followed by a Potluck Open House for my colleagues from work, starting at 6 PM.
  

So that's the update for now...not much topical, I know.

Oh, and a fellow Lanesborian wrote a nice article about my rainwater collection system for a Farm Magazine and Mary Whalen from Spring Valley wants to do an article too - and I'd like it to focus on Conservation, because that's something everybody can do!

Whoa!

Wait a minute, you say, what kind of blog name is this? Well, as an (Old) French idiom goes, "honi soit qui mal y pense" - "shame on him who thinks evil of it". Of course the title (to which all credit and applause goes a dear friend and mentor who shall remain nameless) is a reference to this book being a guide on how to get off-the-grid, off-the-well, and off-the-furnace. And, well, my name is Christian, hence this book is about Getting off (the grid/well/furnace) with Christian.

Well, it's a working title at least. Since this book is likely to be published only in English and primarily in America, any publisher will probably want to tone it down a bit - although they say that sex sells, right?

So what is this blog about? Well, it's the (hopefully) fertile starting ground and repository for chapters of my book about my experience of designing, overseeing the construction of, and living in an "environmentall friendly" house that employes a sufficient numbers of "renewable energies" while providing common, modern-day 21st centure comfort: from the washing machine to the dishwasher, from the wireless internet to the garage door openers, from the (planned) music studio to the (planned) home theater. My motto for this project was "Sustainable Living and Renewable Energy. Comfortably."

Before I conk out completely, I wanted so share my idea for the blogging review process by those of who that I 've invited to participate in this process and to critically (and supportingly) comment on my entries.

But I have to listen to my body now and give in. I'm getting off (the internet) now!

Cheers - Christian