I'm not so much of a green for the sake of global warming person. I think the whole going green thing is a big scam. Lots of money can be made from changes in technology and in society and "going green" is a naked attempt to do that.
Going green and man made global warming practically has religious status. People accuse me of being superstitious... Al Gore is just as much a shill for big companies as any other politician, probably more so.
All that aside... I'm quite a fan of things that don't use up natural resources and do cool things. I like to see new and old technology that uses less energy, and costs less money.
I think someone should invest in designing Sterling engines to recover waste heat from all sorts of projects, steel mills, factories, building heating units. Anywhere there is a differential between hot and cold that will run the engine.
But, I digress...
There is now a "super" energy efficient trailer house from Clayton Homes. This house was featured in the January 15, 2009 issue of PopularMechanics. It is a 992 square foot house which I think is based on the "park model" of trailer house. The sort of house that you put on job sites, or emergency housing.
They have just spiffed it up with that pseudo Scandinavian 1960's-70's modernistic furniture design which is now retro and hip. It has bamboo floors and there is some talk of Ikea furniture. There will possibly be an option of buy and outfit the home from the Ikea website.
It has super insulation, options for rainwater collection, solar panels, and it is small but hip looking. You can also add to it. Some sort of modular design so that you can add rooms.
And it looks cool...
That is probably the best feature. It is a 922 sqft manufactured home that sells for $100,000. So, people are buying based on emotion rather than anything else. So what if you maximum energy bill will be less than the claimed $70 bucks a month. You are still paying a cool grand for an outhouse.
On the other hand, hopefully the concept will sell and there will be a trickle down effect to those of us who don't want to spend as much. When we were looking at manufactured homes I could see the real advantage of those little and somewhat inexpensive homes. But, they looked so cheap. You can mold particle board anyway you want to. Why make it look like crap. And what's up with the T-11 siding influence on manufactured homes? Or the plastic fake accents on the corners? Why not just mold the cheap crap to look like a little bungalow from the 1940's? Put just a little bit more of an overhang on the roof, use horizontal instead of vertical lines on the siding, frame the windows differently and it would look so much better.
In my opinion...
Also, there is a blog called "The Beer Goggler," I think this is funny but you have to look it up yourself. There are half naked girls on it. Somehow that and the home were all linked together.
There seems to be several networks of blogs that feature half naked girls and lots of keywords and use Google Adsense. They all network to each other and they all post on each other's blogs. This generates traffic and ad revenue. They are not about farming...
It is an interesting concept, wonder if it works.
Note: the Clayton Homes website is such a crappy site that I couldn't find the home in question.
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