I will be giving four presentations in Missoula on November 9, 10, and 11 at the Inland Northwest Permaculture Conference. See the full details here.
By PAUL WHEATON
About a year ago, I got a plea from an organization trying to raise funds for people that would have to choose between food and heat. They were asking me (and, I’m sure, thousands of others) to donate money for heat.
Instead of sending money, I sent the following response. I never got a reply.
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Kathy,
I would like to help your efforts go ten times further. I have conducted my research and made my reports. People all over the world are duplicating these efforts with great success.
1) How I cut 87% off of my electric heat bill by heating myself instead of the whole house.
http://www.richsoil.com/electric-heat.jsp
Variations of this can be used for families and guests and all sorts of variations. The important part is that people are just as warm, but they experience MASSIVE savings in their power bill.
2) People have been able to eliminate their electric heat bill with rocket mass heater technology. This is something that takes less than a weekend to build, can cost less than $20, and can cleanly heat a home with just a few twigs. One family heated their home one winter with nothing but junk mail.
http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp
A wofati is a house built into the hillside or ground to help reduce energy needs.
3) A wofati is a house design that requires zero heat because it uses massive thermal inertia. Based on the works of John Hait (Passive Annual Heat Storage) and Don Stephens (Annualized Geo-Solar) for the thermal inertia part, and Mike Oehler for cheap house design.
http://www.richsoil.com/wofati.jsp
With this information, I would like to think that any funds collected with your email below would go ten times further. Or more.
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I am not asking for anybody to send any money to any organization. Instead, I think the real solution is to get this information passed as far as possible.
If you agree, I hope that you forward this to forums, email buddies, mailing lists, facebook, pinterest, etc. etc. etc.
This, dear friends, is saving the world with just a tiny bit of knowledge.
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Paul Wheaton is is the tyrannical ruler of two on-line communities. One is about permaculture and one is about software engineering. There is even one for Missoula. Paul has written several permaculture articles starting with one on lawn care that he presented at the MUD Project 17 years ago, including articles on raising chickens, cast iron and diatomaceous earth. Paul also regularly uploads permaculture videos and permaculture podcasts. In his spare time, Paul has plans for world domination from his hollowed out volcano in the Missoula area, with good submarine access.
See all of Paul’s contributions to Make it Missoula here.