Electric Driveway Snow Melter Thingie

[scone]

Originally Posted by Valerie C

scone, you are a wealth of knowledge, and a wonderful addition to the forum--so glad you joined!!

I'm trying to convince DH to go with radiant heat in the bathroom we'll be doing over the winter. The entire house is forced water, but I really like the idea of heating just the one room, or even just to warm up the floor when we are going to use it. That, and a towel warmer MMMmmmm warm towels So far, he's not buying into it, but I've got a couple of months to work on him

Hey Valerie, thanks! Take him over to Lowe's and show him "easy heat" or "nu heat" kits. It's pretty straightforward for a good DIY person. And they have freestanding towel warmer racks you plug into the wall. Christmas is coming...

[GotBackHome]

Originally Posted by scone

Take a look at 2 x 8 staggered construction, with large areas of south-facing glass and few north windows. Or ICF (insulated concrete). If you go over to the Fine Homebuilding web site, you can look up articles for homes built to keep energy costs very low. The design of the home as a whole greatly influences your costs. It doesn't have to be hugely expensive, and the techniques have improved greatly since the '70's. There's also a Solar Power for Dummies book that we are finding very helpful. Good luck.

Thanks, I'll have to check out that website and bookmark it. I already know we can't do south-facing windows: we face west. not too bad...just not south. ah well. I'll have to see what it says about the ICF, considering we're building earth-shelter.. it's going to be pretty insulated (hence only heating - no a/c!). I'm just always looking for innovative (well, to me at least) ways of doing things that will be cheap to run!