Any home builders... Green/Prefab home hippies??

Like? I mean Denver and surrounding cities are okay, the mountains are great. Nothing beyond that though. The entire eastern part of the state is wasteland. I guess you could say it has something in common with where he is coming from already.

FWIW I didn't read all the replies...so someone said he was heading to Minnesota. I couldn't really think of a good reason to move there.

 

Yea, I'm an outdoor kinda guy. Oklahoma doesn't have much going for it these days... I haven't been snowboarding in years, done real winter and outdoor activities in a long time, it should be a nice change of pace.

 

Actually...I love Colorado! Not sure if I'd move there, guess it would have to depend on where and perks of the job.

 

http://www.flatpakhouse.com Pretty cool product maybe a little more than you are looking for but it would definetly be unique looking.

 

I said Minnesota because the OP said "Our potential destination is commonly the coldest spot in the nation."

Other than Alaska that's the coldest area I could think of. Colorado is not commonly the coldest spot in the nation. It's cold...but nothing like North Dakota, Minnesoda, Fairbanks.

 

I grew up in North Dakota and Minnesota...now I reside in Houston....I would move back in a heartbeat...the summers are so nice there...the winters are crap...but sure beats the houston heat and humidity

 

Your thoughts of where he might be going was pretty much right on with my guess to.

 

Places in the USA outside of Alaska with freezing temperatures, of 32 °F or less, on 180 or more days a year: Location Days Freezing
per Year
Mt. Washington, New Hampshire 242
Alamosa, Colorado 227
Ely, Nevada 218
Flagstaff, Arizona 208
Burns, Oregon 205

Guess it doesn't average the coldest temp, but it's F'N cold!! I've seen -40, sucks!!

http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/coldest.php

 

I've always wondered something about those solar energy credits. When you apply the tax credit to the initial cost of the panels and discount the positive cash flow from your energy savings, will you have a positive ROI? Do any other "green" construction technologies deliver a positive ROI, or is it just pure marketing hype designed to rip you off?

 

this stuff is green in a number of ways. don't know the price.
basically mineralized pulped wood made into blocks.
http://www.durisolbuild.com/

 

Not sure... I saw a show on "planet green" Guy in Boulder CO. building house, signed a contract w/local electric company, split $30k worth of panels 50/50, but I'm guessing he lost $ when it came time to buy the energy back he didn't use. A lot of "Green" building is more about $$ than about being green, no reason a 2000 sq.ft home that's very basic should be $400/sq ft:tut:

I spoke w/Romio Romero, very very informative, and numerous people have built their homes for under $100/sq ft. which is very appealing to me. I like the idea of doing the work inside, give me something to do in this isolated shit hole

 

But... a 20 degree day in CO (or any place with low humidity) is a hell of a lot warmer than a 20 degree day in OK (or any place with high humidity). When we moved to UT from MI, I was shocked at how warmer it "felt". I'd say it's 15-20 degrees different for the same cold feeling. And I'd imagine you'll get way more sunny winter days in CO than OK, though I've never been to OK I'm assuming it's like the midwest in terms of winter weather... grey.

 

400% inflation for a 'green' house over a basic one? Wow. Well, there are a lot of suckers out there who buy into the hype and are very bad at math, so I can't blame the builders for trying to cash in. I'm curious about the ROI for "green" construction in general now. From an economic standpoint, though, if you're a weenie tofu eater, you could be maximizing your utility with green construction because you're purportedly saving cows and various rare insect species. Now that I think about, I want to cash in on the tofu eaters too. Where do I sign up?

 

somewhat related with data:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/06/23/191230

 

Thanks for the data. Now I know for sure that it isn't worth it. Assuming you finance the solar panels with home equity (8.47% from bankrate.com) the net present value of his solar "investment" is negative $15,932 after considering 12 years of "savings". The internal rate of return for the same period is -0.82%. Not worth it. A government incentive or cost reduction that would reduce the initial cost by about $15,935 would be required to achieve breakeven after 12 years. We're not considering the salvage value of the solar panels (IE: what can I sell them for after 12 years, or how much additional money can I receive for my home because of the panels), but it's probably not going to be much more than zero.

 

Solar was quite trendy 30 years ago after the oil embargo. I had some design school acquaintences that got heavily into passive solar design and a couple friends that built the superinsulated homes. Solar can work, but even then the active solar depended on tax incentives to get market share. The passive stuff at that time required adapting life to house and would be a challenge to make work in a lot of suburban settings because of orientation issue.

The supertight, superinsulated homes were great on energy savings, but is you didn't pay attention to fresh air intake, the indoor air quality sucked. Mold, mildew and gasses from the building materials could be nasty.

 

I'm a builder, specializing in green construction & I've been green since 2001 and in the industry since the early 90's. in most of the stuff I do, full homes begin around $800k & go up from there.Beware, there are a lot of snake oil salesman out there trying to pass themselves off as green. Most green construction products are very costly, but there are some common sense things you can do to make a normal house, "green."
Invest in high-quality double or even triple insulated windows- metal-clad wood- stay away from vinyl- the materials are very toxic to manufacture and vinyl windows have a life of 5-8 years before they go bad and start to leak, warp and crack.
Insulate the hell out of the house and seal it up tight.
make sure you have a heating/ac system that is setup to handle a tightly sealed house and a well ventilated attic.
install high-efficiency appliances
use compact fluorescent bulbs in your lights or LED arrays.
turn off your lights when you're not in the room.
common sense stuff, really.
Stuff like solar heating, geo-thermal, pv solar and wind are really great technologies, but expensive at the point of purchase, however, they will eventually pay for themselves inthe money you save- sometimes in as little as 5 years.
leed certification adds 20% to the cost of building your home & many of the specs can be achieved without the cost of certification. it may improve resale value, but that remains to be seen. I wouldn't recommend it unless you were dropping serious cash and wanted to impress your prius driving neighbors.
pm me if you want any more info.

 

Splitting hairs here but I think the Coldest Mean Temperature means more.

Mt. Washington, New Hampshire 27.2
International Falls, Minnesota 37.4
Marquette, Michigan 38.7
Duluth, Minnesota 39.1
Caribou, Maine 39.2

 

I like the superinsulated home idea...but yeah..fresh air is key...but then I'll need some sort of backup power to make sure my air exchange can run when the power goes out.

 

Hemcrete