Excess and energy

Our Fearless Leader, Lloyd, told us we'd be interested in a This Old House series on a timber frame going up near here in Weston by a company called Bensonwood. Flip and I have watched a few, and yes, the beauty of the timber frame is duly explored, as are the benefits of prefabricating. However, it is abundantly clear that these people are EXTREMELY RICH. The amount of extras, fancy "green" touches, and the size of the building, not to mention separate baths for their children, walk-up cupolas, bridges from place to place, are just over the top. Flip asked me if I liked theirs better and I had to say, no. My upbringing screams "excess!" B-wood is doing a great job. It's just not for people who prefer to work with friends, have their children share, and live a life of making choices.

It's too early to know if we'll get our permit today, but I won't predict any more.

What we do know (finally, after weeks of waiting for people to get back to us) is that we can actually afford to do a single loop geothermal air exchange heating system. The numbers are coming in, and it's looking like around $5k per ton for the inside system including ducting and a Water Furnace, plus around $7-9 for the outside stuff like drilling our well deeper and piping. Although it's around $10k more than a standard heating system in our size house, if it works like it should we will pay ourselves back in under 5 years--and have air conditioning. So cheers all around! See www.waterfurnace.com for information on ours, there are other good brands like Climate Master. So maybe we have to be a little richer than we wanted, but I'd sacrifice some hardwood floors never to buy oil or gas again (and I may have to). Another choice.