The Actively Passive Home — New Construction Using Old Rules

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• great article. what happens if you have to leave the house? I wondered about the pipes freezing

• great article . I wondered what you do if you have to leave the house for a couple of days..

• This was very informative. With costs of heating & cooling (along with everything else) increasing it's important to rethink the way we design living spaces. We can also adapt our cooking in summer by eating cold meals or solar ovens or grilling. With your dogtrot you could use small appliances like a crockpot or foreman grill on inclement days. I live in a hundred year old shotgun house in a small Arkansas town. Over the past 20 years we've made loads of improvements including a new light colored roof & lots of insulation. The front porch unfortunately faced west. Unshaded it was intolerable in summer. We remedied this by planting bamboo on one side & a trellis with flowering vines on the other half. We planted a peach tree in the middle of the yard & thornless blackberries along the border fence. With a glider gifted from an old Aunt & a gas grill it's a perfect hangout spot. Even if a person's home is less than ideal there are always improvements that can be made...many at low or no cost.

• Love the concept AND the home you built. Please put up a clearer picture of the floor plan. My aging eyes are having a hard time reading it.

  Can you plant some trees to shade the house during the Summer? One thing I use when the heat is too high to sleep is to wet a t-shirt, wring it out, then put it on. The water will keep your body cool enough for sleep to come. I'd rather the bedding was dampened by clean water than smelly sweat.