The more work I do designing our house, the more I realize how many problems there are with conventional homes.
1) Indoor kitchens. STUPID IDEA. You basically pay to heat your house up and then pay to cool it back down again, in the summer time. We don't have AC in our apartment, so we can't cook unless it is very early in the morning. In this house, we will have a tiny wood burning stove for winter, which will heat our house and our food. In the summer we will cook outside under the awning (crock pots, toaster ovens, and open flames).
2) Plumbing. It generally does not work well. Drains are always getting clogged, and are very hard to unclog without invasive measures or harsh chemicals. The kitchen sink is the most disgusting thing. Flush toilets use
perfectly fine drinking water, and a lot of it. In this house, we will have a separate building nearby with a composting toilet, a grey water sink, and an outdoor grey water shower. For next winter we will build a solar-heated bath house for bathing in the winter time. We will probably have an old-fashioned chamber pot for midnight pee pees, inside the house.
3) 2nd stories are generally poorly designed. They are a big trap for hot air. You have to pay tons of money to keep your 2nd floor cool in the summer. This house has windows which vent open at the top of the angled roof. The high ceilings also keep hot air out of the main living space in the summer time.
4) Few windows come with most conventional homes. You have to pay for light, which is free. You have to pay for cool air to circulate through your house, which is free at night in the spring, fall, and summer. More south-facing windows would allow the winter sun to heat your home for free as well. This house will have more windows than is pictured. And not the crappy kind that are very hard to open and close! The old fashioned kind that swing open and latch shut.
5) Most conventional homes have more space than you need. This leads to people spending half of their time either cleaning or maintaining some aspect of their home. Most people work long hours to pay for a huge house they don't need. This house is 12x12x12 (local laws allow buildings this small to exist without permits).
6) Most homes are made of cheap, toxic, ugly materials. This house will be made of local, rough cut lumber, light clay slip straw walls, recycled windows, doors, and broken concrete.
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Our budget is $2000. No rent, no mortgage!!
