House #1: A 20 room mansion + 8 bathrooms, pool, pool house and guest house heated by natural gas. Monthly utilities on this house run approx $2400, more energy than most homeowners use in a year. In natural gas alone, it uses 20 times what the average American home uses.
House #2: Is a 4 bedroom house of approx 4,000 sf, nestled in the high prairie. A central closet holds geothermal heat pumps drawing water through pipes sunk 300 ft into the ground. The water (@67 degrees f) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels and consumes 25% of the electricity required for conventional heating/cooling. Rainwater from the roof is funnelled into a 25,000 gal cistern. Water from the sinks, baths, etc goes into underground purifying tanks and also into the cistern and is used to irrigate the land surrounding the house.
House #1 owned by Al Gore.
House #2 owned by George Bush.
Astounding.
2007-04-02
10:49:01
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11 answers
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asked by
the_skipper_also
3