Plug for Atlanta Modern Home Tour

This weekend, there will be a tour of 11 modern homes in Atlanta. It should be interesting to see what others have done in their modern homes. Check out: http://www.atlmodern.com/hometour/

Concrete forms are in

Here’s an update on our progress thus far. They’ve excavated a lot of dirt out of the lot, poured the concrete footers, and have the forms set for the crawl space walls (these will be four feet tall).

They’ve also set up the forms for the high retaining walls on the west side of the lot and part of the garage walls that will serve as a retaining wall too. These are about 10 feet tall.

Pouring the concrete and getting inspections should take the rest of the week and then we should start framing next week. That’s when it will get fun!

Rent solar panels?

Solar power would be fantastic to build into our new house but it’s so expensive to purchase panels. An estimate for the amount of electricity we’d need to generate would be $50-$60K to install the size solar panels we’d need to provide electricity for our home. BP Solar has a really cool calculator on their website where you can input info about your zipcode, monthly electric bill, and desired solar system size to find an approximate cost of the system and monthly cost savings by using solar power. For us in Atlanta, with Georgia Power as our electricity provider, a 8kw solar system would cost us $51K and would only save us about $50 in electricity each month. That means it would take us 85 years to recoup the cost of the system — hardly makes economic sense.

Georgia lags behind other states in providing tax breaks for solar systems. We could only claim a $2000 federal incentive for purchasing one. That won’t work for us.

At the Atlanta Home Show last weekend, we signed up with a new company that is proposing to “rent” you solar panels for your home on a per-kilowatt basis for a one, five or 25 year contract with a $500 deposit. You lock in the rate you’re currently paying per kw with your current electricity provider and pay that rate for your electricity consumption to the company instead. By locking in your kw rate, as electricity rates go up, you save by only paying them the rate you locked in for one, five, or 25 years. It seems like an interesting idea, but I have my doubts. With solar panel technology getting better everyday, my fear is that if we jump on this latest bandwagon, some major innovation in solar power technology will develop making solar panels smaller, cheaper, and more efficient just as what has happened with computer technology over the years. Who wants to sign up for a 25 or even five year contract with innovation in the industry a distinct possibility? As much I love the idea of running our house on solar power right now, I think the best idea is to wait a bit before signing up. If you’re interested in learning more about this company, see http://renu.citizenre.com/.

What’s a urinal worth?

So Kyle won the battle over the urinal…. looks like he’ll be getting one in the master bathroom. It even shows up as a little urinal opposite the toilet in our house plans. Ain’t that cute? Try as I might to argue the case against it, apparently a girl simply can’t comprehend its significance to the male species. The battle was surely lost once our male architect said he bought one for himself too for his new house. And every single guy we’ve mentioned it to seems overjoyed and a little bit too zealous at the thought of one in his house. Weird stuff. I don’t get it. Maybe I should try to get him to buy one of these to compensate for the damage to my feminine psyche: 

      

For more funky urinals, see http://www.clarkmade.com/urinals.html

The question is… what can I barter in exchange for one urinal in the master bathroom? I was offered a bidet, but really, who uses one? I’m holding out for something better. Do you have any suggestions?