green building

We recently installed the panel roof system over the kitchen area and hit the first of our inevitable early-adopter glitches. The roof panels are 11 inches thick and much heavier than the wall panels, as they have much more embedded steel to carry both my green roof and the snow load here in upstate New York. The things are dense and required a serious effort for two to carry around. Even with all that beefiness, the engineer asked me to put a horizontal steel beam through the middle of the room for added support. The panels were supposed to meet at the beam and fit seamlessly together. The key words there: supposed to. Read on for the reality.

One of the most unique things about my green home is the walls: instead of a standard "stick-frame" construction, I'm using special insulated panels from a company called Kama-Eebs, which have all sorts of advantages in efficiency and heat retention.

Even though I spend most of my time thinking about geothermal heating systems and backyard solar plants for my green home, in the end, a house is a house; holes must be dug, foundations must be laid, steel delivered and erected, and so on. Here's a look at our progress in that less glamorous but wholly necessary department.

Next week I’m going to build the primary steel staircase for the house. Over the last 24 hours the design has changed more than three times. It’s not that I don’t know what I want, it’s just that I have a crazy architect, Timon Phillips, and an even more crazy friend, Vin Marshall, who engineered and designed what I’m calling the “mouse tower” concept and will be welding it with me. (Lesson one of a DIY build: If your friends are as nuts as you are, nothing in your home is going to be normal or easy.)

Polaris has just introduced an electric version of the Ranger 400 side-by-side. This is very exciting to me. As you may remember, I'm the guy who built a rather non-green jet turbine side-by-side, but 114 dB does get old after a while.

Every home needs lights. But for the Green Dream? Forget copper wire between lights and light switches, three-way switches and batteries; I’m looking at Verve’s lighting control system—-a wireless solution that uses radio frequencies to control a home’s lights, allowing you to put your light switches wherever you want--on your wall, in your pocket or even the dash of your car.

John B. Carnett, PopSci's staff photographer, is using the latest green technology to build his dream home. This is the first entry in his new blog tracking the build--follow along at popsci.com/green-dream

No, it's not a death ray. The folks at RawSolar are creating what looks like a very affordable solar thermal tracking dish. This is a mini version of the concentrating solar power systems you see commercially in the 25 kilowatt range.