National Solar Tour

[kahle]

The national solar tour is coming up this Saturday. This is a great place to find ideas about how to build your house to gain passive solar and how to build your roof to maximize other solar installations (photovoltaics, clear stories, solar water heaters etc.). There are also wind and water installations as well in some locations. The tour also shows off a number of building techniques like straw bale houses that are considered super efficient. However, I have yet to see a log home featured in any of these tours. I know from my reading and from personal experience that log walls can be highly efficient. I'm wondering why we don't see this reflected in the alternative energy building sites. I was hoping to encourage more log home owners to volunteer your houses for this annual event.

Anyway, to find the tour in your area simply go to http://www.nationalsolartour.org

[patrickandbianca]

Paul,

This is more to get it on the post moving than anything, but i dont think i would volunteer to be on this tour just becuase I get freaked out about liability. All those strangers, with all their insurance companies would be enough to keep me up for an entire night! Of course I dont own a home with any unique energy saving or producing products either, so its not an issue.
On another note: When you put your log rafters up was there much shimming and planing involved? You make it look so easy on your site, and Ellsworth is always recommending not to because of the difficulty. By the way, your house looks awesome.
Patrick