I will eventually be building one and was curious if anyone else was.

No one??? oh well, Mine will be made of load bearing strawbale
walls and wind and solar power.

u mean green house for plants? That would be cool

i help build one and it was hard and hot

Really socall? What kind and no Bored....silly!!!

a green house omg lol

i was thinking about building a green house... i have a perfect spot for
one all picked out...

Oh hippie? lots of sun? wind?

I want the roof to also catch rain water so as not to need a well. We
have all kinds of water here so it would be fine with a well but i'd
rather catch the rain.

rproman,

I helped to build a straw bale house about 10 years ago. It was
amazingly simple, and easy. They caught the rainwater with the roof,
had composting toilets, and the largest most diverse garden I've ever
seen.

I have no plans to build a green home from scratch, but I'll certainly
greenify whatever home I buy, with a grey water system and extreme
energy efficiency; details depend on where exactly (climate, etc) I end
up buying a house.

im not sure yet.. i have a book here i have been looking through

Yeah, i've been looking at the floor plan Algore used. Plenty of space
in there.

this seems to be a good project to get involved in and it is backed by
the goverment.. with the soaring costs of building
materials skyrocketing and tripling in prices then it is becoming the
best cost efficient way, plus the materials are
tested by the goverment and have been approved, and proven to be a
healthy more sutible structure to live in.

i would build one

My children's father and I built a 'green' home 18 years ago...

We live in the sub tropics of Queensland, Australia, and built a home
suitable to the climate.

The entire home was built from 'deadfall' timbers, and recycled
materials, walls, floors, roof, fittings, windows, doors, support
bearers and frames, everything..

The entire house was built with chainsaw, cross-cut saw, bit and brace,
and tin snips, human power, no electric power tools..(other than the
chain saw, a petrol power tool)

We had solar power, (and a back up generator, as our family grew to six)
our only source of catchmment for water was our roof, into storage
tanks, and creeks, when the seasons permitted it.

A wood burning stove was our source for cooking, heat, and hot water..

The grey water from the house, (showers, washing water) went to a
gravity fed gravel pit and filtered through to the garden. No or low
phosphate products were used, with washing, so as to have less impact on
the soils.

The toilet was a composting loo, and also an extremely effective no
water toilet.

We grew our own vegetables, and raised our own meat, organic, and as
close to permaculture as possible.

Minimal 'footprint' was our credo, and was acheivable, very easily.

We built a beautiful loft style home for the sum total of
$5 500 AU...including all materials...(without looking at the cost value
of labour) even our bricks we made from the resources around
us...(decomposed granite, and sand)...labour intensive? Yes. rewarding?
yes.

It can be done...

I would love to, but I hear they're VERY expensive to maintain...

Peacekeeper, could you elaborate on how they are expensive to maintain?

To be honest Jess, I don't know. It just came up in a conversation the
other day. I said I was thinking about building one, and several of my
"co-workers" advised against it, said it was very expensive to
maintain... I havn't done any research on it yet though.

Ok...well I hope 'they threw the gauntlet down', so to speak, and it
encourages you to investigate it further.

I am not familiar with building codes in the US, at all, but I wonder,
how many have looked at recycling pre-used building materials.

Most of the timbers we sourced that were recycled, were rare timbers,
native to this area, and were sooo expensive to try and source new...and
yet we picked up, (purchased) whole buildings, some times for a carton
of beer!!!

I DO NOT KNOW ATHING BOUT GREEN HOUSE BUT I WOULD LIKE TO LEARN MORE
RPROMAN