With every year that passes it seems like more rich farmland is being converted into sprawling residential developments forcing food to travel farther and farther to our dinner plates and as a result increasing the carbon footprint. When you live in the suburbs you are almost as likely to see deer, skunks, and possums on the road as you are other drivers because their habitat is slowly disappearing. There are millions of car dependent communities across the country and with this dependency comes wider roads and highways along with massive parking lots significantly reducing groundwater recharge. Where are our land ethics?

As children we are taught about the ethical treatment of human beings but what abut the ethical treatment of land? We are dependent upon land resources for survival yet as a society we have lack an appreciation and admiration for it.

Aldo Leopold championed the idea of land ethics. Land ethics is a perspective of ecological planning. It is a way to view man in relation to the environment. Land ethics should hold a particular standard which maintains the beauty, and high standards of environmental consciousness because it is immoral to set inferior criterion.

Our minimal value of land is largely due to the fact that man views himself as separate from nature. He sees himself as an all-powerful being with no relation or dependence on the world around him or her.

A large part of our disconnection from nature is that we spend so little time in our natural environment. We spend 90% of our day indoors away from grass, trees, flowers, animals, and all the other pleasant amenities nature has to offer. Our water is piped though the walls and seems to almost magically appear on demand. We can call on any natural amenity with such ease and as a result we forget that water actually came from a natural resource. When we are hungry we do not need to pick tomatoes or butcher a cow, we simply have to enter a supermarket that will supply us with endless options of food to satisfy our nourishment or indulgence.

If man begins to immerse him or herself with nature we will begin to reconnect with our environment. Reconnecting with nature by growing your own vegetables or even taking a few moments out of the day to appreciate natural beauty will help to create a lifelong relationship filled with love, admiration, and respect.

The clock is ticking and with every passing day we become more entrenched in global warming. The sea levels are rising as our quality of living is lowering. Could land ethics lead to the solution of our environmental worries? Is the issue of land ethics even a reality or was Aldo Leopold off base? Do you feel connected with nature? Do you feel you or those around you appreciate land and treat it with respect?

Please comment, I would love to hear what you think!

Building Gaskets vs. Construction Adhesive

Over in Germany where the Passive House standard originated, they have been using rubber building gaskets for over a decade rather than typical construction adhesive that is used in the US building industry. These gaskets are usually made of EPDM and are similar to the ones used in automotive applications. These gaskets offer a far superior seal for water and air infiltration in difficult and uneven joints like wood to concrete and even wood to wood connections.

I just stumbled on a company in Baltimore, MD – Conservation Technologies – that carries a whole host of these German inspired building gaskets, along with a whole bunch of other cool building products for earth loving projects. They have a whole list of reasons why their gaskets are better than caulk or foam that is typically used in the US. Below are the Pros and Cons that we see:

Pros of Building Gaskets

• Superior seal to caulk and foam gaskets or adhesives for both water and air infiltration, especially on uneven surfaces.
• Gaskets will last forever with no deterioration.
• The installation is easy to perform and easy to verify whereas caulk or smaller foam gaskets are very difficult to verify proper application once the walls are secured in place.

Cons of Building Gaskets

• Cost premium (see below for analysis)
• Limited availability
• Construction crew resistance to new technology that is clearly awesome and being used in the rest of the enlightened world for the past 10+ years.

Cost Analysis of Building Gaskets vs. Construction Adhesive

I’ve compared the raw material cost only of two applications of the gaskets. The first is a gasket that would go on a 2×4 to be used at a sill plate location or between the first and second floor of a house. The other is an interior application at the drywall to wood connections. It’s clear that the cost is 2-3 times that of conventional construction adhesive. Some may claim this is expensive, but I was happy to see that the cost difference was not much higher.

2×4 Building Gasket = $0.44 per linear foot
Double Construction Adhesive = $0.15 for two lines per linear foot (1/4″ beads with 10% waste per tube)

Drywall Building Gasket = $0.16 per linear foot
Single Construction Adhesive = $0.075 per linear foot (1/4″ bead with 10% waste)

If we were to take one of our standard building footprints of roughly 18′x40′ that would mean our perimeter is 116′. We would use at least three instances of the 2×4 gasket at the sill plate, second floor and roof details for a total of 348′. Using gaskets rather than a double bead of construction adhesive would add roughly $100 to our material costs. Not bad at all for extreme confidence in a good number of our critical air sealing junctions. Not bad at all.

Air Sealing Tape Analysis

OK, we’ve looked at gaskets, now lets look at using a whole bunch of tape to seal the seams in our sheathing prior to installing our WRB. This seems extreme to most, and maybe it is, but man does it look good. It also seals a building up really nicely for very little additional non-skilled labor. I mean, we can all handle a roll of tape.

Passive House people love this Grace Vycor Tape for their OSB air sealing. I’m sure there are many other butyl based tapes out there that are similar and just as effective, but we will use Grace Vycor for our example. It can be found online in 6″x75′ rolls for about $24 which is not cheap, but certainly is not a bad deal for such a lovely product.

Our homes are small and infill, so we have two facades that are roughly 18′x25′ to be taped. This equates to 900 square feet with roughly 12′ of tape needed for each 32 square foot sheet or sheating (only two sides need tape as the others will overlap other sheats). This gives us $337 of tape needed. Let’s go ahead and round that up to $500 for extra tape needed on corners, windows and door openings if we are so inclined. While this is more expensive than the gaskets, it’s still manageable and should go a very long way to reducing air infiltration in our homes.

So there you have it. For less than an extra $600 in material costs and negligible labor additions, we have created a very air tight envelope that is easy to inspect and verify. Your costs in detached homes will obviously be larger, but they should still be in line percentage wise with your build costs as you are already used to buying more sheathing, cladding and the like. Offer your thoughts on these material additions to traditional builds in the comments and thanks for reading.

Last time we spoke about air sealing was when we looked at our foundation and slab insulation and under slab air sealing. Since then we have obviously finished framing, sheathing and cladding the homes. Let’s recap our basic air sealing strategy since these posts on the foundation.

Above Grade Air Sealing Techniques on the Passive Project

1. SIPs walls and roof – Review SIPs Construction Details and notice how much sealant they spec in the assembly of a SIPs building. This along with the SIPs themselves, makes for a much tighter home than an average stick built home. We improved our sealing details from experience gained on the 100K House installation.
2. The poly air barrier from beneath our slab was wrapped up inside the house and continuously taped to the interior of the SIPs walls to eliminate air leakage at the critical junction between slab, foundation wall and first floor framing.
3. A Tyvec air and water barrier was installed on the exterior of the walls. All seams were taped and all windows and doors were taped, caulked and foamed to the Tyvec barrier. Normally people don’t tape the seams. We made sure each seam was taped.
4. Tyvec was all used in between the homes at the party wall as seen in the image above. All seams were again taped, and this layer was wrapped around to the facades and to the roofing membrane to form a continuous barrier.
5. The typical rubber roof acts as our air barrier on the roof.
6. Each penetration through the slab or roof was taped and foamed to its surrounding air barrier with a detail similar to the one shown below.
7. A wireless electrical switch in combination with floor outlets along the interior facades of the homes, eliminates electrical penetrations through the SIPs walls.
8. All LVLs were designed not to penetrate any exterior walls to maintain the airtight SIPs walls.
9. All joists and rim boards were hung internally to make for a simpler and more airtight exterior wall construction.
10. All drywall is glued to the interior of SIPs and framing.

This is a long list and if I had to pick the most critical out of this, I’d say it is the SIPs, the under slab poly wrapping up to the SIPs and the envelope penetrations as the key details that are significantly different from normal construction. The Tyvec layer inbetween the two homes was also not the easiest sell to the construction crew.

We implemented all these items to the best of our ability, but mistakes were made along the way. It’s hard to tell where sealant or tape may not have been applied as needed. These omissions have resulted in a lower than desired tightness at our pre-drywall inspection. We’re not exactly sure of the actual result due to some HVAC and electrical openings that were not completely sealed at the time of the test, but we think we are somewhere in the range of 3-5 air changes per house at 50 Pascals of pressure. Our ultimate goal in the Passive House standard is 0.6 ACH @ 50Pa, so needless to say, we are doing our best to patch and caulk any and all air leaks that we found during the test.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from both building the Passive Project and attending the recent Passive House Conference in Urbana, Il is that this 0.6 ACH @ 50Pa target is by far the hardest spec to achieve in the Passive House standard. I would say it’s even harder for a production builder to achieve in an environment that does not allow extra time and budget to fix some errors along the way. An owner/builder can decide to add another month or three and a couple grand to their budget to make air sealing changes on the fly. A production builder needs to have their plan bulletproof from the beginning and execute it to the T or the entire construction schedule and budget will be thrown out the window trying to recover.

Key Airtight Construction Lessons Learned

• Design multiple layers of air sealing. There should be one primary line of defense against air infiltration in your envelope assembly (A red line drawing), but you should not stop there. Take every opportunity to air seal anything you can from the outside to the inside of your walls and roofs. I have Mr. Hayden Robinson to thank for this advice at the Passive House conference. I was pleased to see him present on his latest Passive House design that looks almost identical to the planned construction on the Skinny Project.
• Design simple to implement air sealing details. If a crew is completely unfamiliar with a certain product or method, then sometimes it is best to re-think a detail. If everyone can understand the detail and believes it will be worthwhile to install, there is less chance of corners being cut when someone is not looking on the job site. Sometimes it is also better to spend more money on a better product that will reduce labor costs when time and budget are a concern.
• Design easy to inspect air sealing details. It is kind of common sense, but it makes sense that it is easier to require strict air sealing if it is easy for your forman to inspect the critical details during assembly and preferably after assembly. If a gap can be caught easily at the end of a daily inspection before it is covered up the next day, you’re going to end up with a much tighter house in the end for the least cost.
• Document your critical air sealing details well. This sounds logical, but most air sealing details can get lost in the mix when surrounded by many other structural and material details and callouts. We prefer to have specific diagrams on separate 8.5×11’s that can be made into a book to reference on the jobsite. These details get down to the very basics of the critical air sealing materials and junctions. They can also be blown up much larger than normal when placed on their own page.

OK, now that we’ve covered that, we can move on to what we are planning for the next project in terms of air sealing. As we have heard, we are going away from SIPs on the next project (dang, I need to post on why) so we have our work cut out for us.

Future Air Sealing Construction Strategies

1. Document each critical air sealing detail on it’s own 8.5 x 11″ page for easy reference at the construction site as stated above.
2. Tape all seams in exterior sheathing with Grace Vycor Tape.
3. Install an one way air tight Water Resistive Barrier (Tyvec, VaproShield…) and tape all seams over the sheathing.
4. Use Conservation Technology Building Gaskets at all critical wood to wood and wood to concrete connections while framing. I love these gaskets and will write an entire blog post later on why. They rock.
5. Apply construction adhesive liberally at all wood to wood connections near the exterior sheathing where gaskets are not used.
6. Install Conservation Techonology’s Drywall gaskets on interior framing to provide an airtight seal once drywall is applies without having to install costly poly or similar air sealing barrier.
7. Use rigid XPS insulation with taped seams as air barrier on basement walls that connects to sheathing above and underslab insulation and poly below.
8. Use specialized double sided butyl tape of window gaskets to seal around windows and doors in addition to spray foam. I haven’t made up my mind on the best method here. Gaskets are great and I think the tape is even better but only found in Europe right now.
9. Use Protecto Wrap’s Dual Guard Threshold Tape under all door thresholds. This is a nasty area where metal is usually meeting concrete and just doesn’t seal well.

Well, I think I’m spent on this post. I apologize for the lack of diagrams. They will follow hopefully in future posts. Please add to my lousy lessons and ideas in the comments below and I will try to participate as much as possible.

The most noticeable change at the site has been the exterior. Paint is on and other than some detail work at the base of the homes and the addition of our window shades, the outside of the houses are finished. So, for those that don’t attend to our Flickr page regularly, here are some of the images of the facades in all their glory.

So, how did we get here? How did these facades reach this particular point? This may be good time for a history lesson, or to be less pedagogical, a retrospective.

Some of you may remember the beginning of the Passive House facades. The early designs (pictured below) featured a variety of different materials.

We eventually moved away from these ideas due to the complexity of construction and the difficulty of working with multiple materials. From the discussions around revisions with ISA we reached the concept of single material facades (in this case fiber cement lap siding) as a design element. This thinking led to the lap siding version of the home, initially rendered like this . . .

From there color was added to give a sense of depth and excitement.

This addition received mixed reactions and was eventually toned down to this, our actual homes.

So, what do you think? Use the comments for praise, biting critique, partially formed emotional outpourings, worshipful haiku or any other expression of your feelings.

The majority of people are reluctant to do anything inconvenient even if that thing benefits them in some significant and immediate way. There are, let’s face it, relatively few of us jumping on the treadmill every morning. Sure, we may climb aboard on occasion, but typically most of our mornings are spent slapping the snooze button until we are only 10 to 15 minutes late for work. And, exercise is something with recognizable short term benefits. Treadmill use could make us healthier, more attractive and less likely to get winded walking from the couch to the fridge. So, what about those actions with less tangible results? What about those things that are important for others or for these “future generations” we hear so much about? If most of us can’t be bothered to play the hamster for 15 minutes for the benefit of our own bodies, what are the chances we will get involved in anything that doesn’t immediately reduce our chances of serious illness or increase our chances of a date?

The most inconvenient things that the majority of us do in the day have the most immediate and tangible rewards. When we work, we get a paycheck. When we take care of our children, they become less likely to take up recreational armed robbery or burn the house down. When we go shopping, we get to eat. I’m sure you could continue this list on and on until you begin to see the root of the problem. Generally, we have so many inconvenient things to do that adding more without immediate recognizable results is asking quite a bit. We would much rather fill those few free moments we have with fun. We would rather play a game, sip a beer or watch Two and a Half Men (though I remain confused as to how the latter is fun).

So, how do we get ourselves and those around us to do those necessary, but inconvenient things that will contribute to maintaining the livability of our planet? How do we convince people to reduce their energy usage, to walk instead of drive, to recycle, to compost, to care about storm water, to buy local food? How do we break easy habits like throwing trash into storm drains (Philly, I’m looking at you) or taking extra long showers?

Why not appeal to our desire for fun? Sure, we could use the old standbys of rewards and punishment, shame and making things easier, but wouldn’t fun be . . . well, more fun? We could, in theory, make these inconvenient things we have to do into fun things we get to do. This could result in more buy-in even among those of us too short sighted to care about the long term benefits of our actions.

Some good examples of this can be found at The Fun Theory where they believe that fun is the best way to get people to change their behavior. In one instance they turned the stairway next to an escalator into a piano, resulting in a 60% increase in stair usage. They also rigged a garbage can to make an amusing sound when used, resulting in a lower littering rate. But how might these ideas be used to accomplish local sustainability goals? How can we make the small mundane things we want people to do fun?

I have seen people in my neighborhood who are incredibly skilled at throwing trash into the storm drains from considerable distances. Could this same skill, and the enjoyment derived from it be directed at a less destructive receptacle? Perhaps a garbage bin with a variety of holes of varying size and difficulty. Maybe a receptacle that rewarded a shot with sound or light.

I have also noted that the tendency to save energy is higher when the information is public. What if there was a game or competition of some sort that encouraged people to share that information. This could be made even easier with the new online energy monitoring options that are beginning to come out. We could hold block vs block competitions . . . tournaments of savings.

These aren’t great ideas or even new ones, but I think if we include the concept of fun in our discussions on how to motivate people toward participation we will set ourselves up for more success. Until sustainable activities are habit, it is going to take a lot of work to convince people to get involved. Some of that work could be made easier by introducing elements of fun into the equation.

So what ideas do you have to make the inconvenient fun? How can we use games to engage more people in solutions? Or, is it better to stick with punishments and rewards?

Do that fun commenting thing.

A McMansion, three cars, and spacious back yard in the suburbs, is this the American Dream or the American suburban sprawl nightmare?

Suburban sprawl is the development of land into sparse one family housing developments, significantly reducing open space and the natural aesthetics of the land while creating a society dependent upon cars for transportation. It is an epidemic that has affected our country since the start of the industrial revolution. As a wave of new immigrants became city residents, wages rose and those who could moved into the suburbs in search of what they considered to be enhanced quality of life. This suburban migration has become a modern day rite of passage to success.

In short suburban sprawl effects:
1. Environment
-Runoff, air pollution, global warming, groundwater recharge
2. Farmland
-Poor food systems, loss of aesthetics, reduced farming culture and a lack of diverse landscapes
3. Biodiversity
-Destruction of habitat and species extinction
4. Quality of life
-Increased traffic, poor air quality, isolation from neighborhood

I think we all know examples of suburban sprawl. I grew up in a small suburban town in New Jersey where the average home sits on an acre of land. My parents have lived in the same home for over 25 years, and we still don’t know our neighbors. We are completely dependent upon car transportation. If I walk around my neighborhood, there are no sidewalks, and I only see other homes. I’m sure this picture of my town paints a similar image for others across the country. While this is no longer a lifestyle I subscribe to, I couldn’t imagine my parents living another way, and I’m sure the same goes for millions of other people. However, this way of life is unsustainable and change is necessary if we are going to avoid further environmental damage.

As a solution to suburban sprawl we can opt for smart growth. Smart growth allows for more densely populated communities, mixed land use, and communities with character. It encourages less driving, transit oriented development, minimizes impervious ground and it maximizes groundwater recharge. It also allows for beautiful green and open land that can be used for recreational purposes, farmland, or simply for aesthetics, like Central Park in NYC. It reduces pollution because it gives its residents the opportunity to walk to a friend’s house or to the store opposed to being dependent upon a vehicle for transportation.

A recent example of the adoption of smart growth is Tysons Corner in Virginia. In September 2008, after 3 years in development, a plan was approved for this small suburb of DC to evolve from a traditional, car dependent, land consuming suburb to a modern green city dependent upon the gift of non-motorized and public transportation as well as smart land use while enhancing culture and living conditions. I’m so excited to see that changes are happening and people are beginning to reach outside the realm of traditional planning and development.

While I adore the idea of smart growth, I don’t live in a bubble. I realize that millions of people have invested their lives in attaining this version of the American dream, and I know that dream isn’t going to change to smart growth over night. There are hints of change throughout the country and even locally. The Delaware Valley Planning Commission launched a smart growth program this year in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties but we still have a long way to go. How do we further the revolution when this sprawling version American Dream is so ingrained in our culture? What is the best way to encourage smart growth? How strong do you think the resistance to this idea will be? Will people be willing to shift their lifestyle simply by understanding the stakes or will we need government mandates and incentives to encourage change?

Tell me what you think in the comments.

The third project takes the best lessons learned from both the 100K House and the Passive Projects. We will be seeking LEED Platinum again, but we will not be seeking official Passiv Haus certification this go around. Other changes include, stick framing (instead of SIPs), basements and our newest home model, The Skinny. The location will be 5 doors down from the 100K project.

We’ve worked hard to update our project pages on all three sites over the past week. Our hard work can be viewed at the links below:

Skinny on PostgreenHomes.com (Customize & Buy)
Skinny on 100kHouse.com (Blog-like details & links)
Skinny on Postgreen.com (Corporate project page we have to keep up)

Some of the key features I’ve been telling people about these homes is that they will probably be the last homes we build in a while that start under $300K, due to our next big project taking place in a more expensive neighborhood, Fishtown. Also, the Solar PV incentives are still going strong from both the Federal and State governments, so achieving Net Zero Energy status is a possibility for the upgrade price of a Honda Fit. More details on the financing of the Solar Arrays on our homes soon.

We have a number of very interested parties in these units already, so if you are at all interested, now is the time to act. We are giving tours of the 100K House to anyone interested as construction has not begun on the homes yet. Buyers have the opportunity to choose from either the Skinny model or Loft model and the corner house can even accomodate a new 3 bedroom version of the Loft.

You will notice in the current renderings that there seem to be some trees printed on the exterior. This will not be the final finish, but we are diligently working with a local artist that is intent on screen printing a unique design right onto the fiber cement panels that will comprise the cladding. We’re all pretty excited about this being the first Postgreen Home complete with “House Tattoos.”

1. There is a great new video of Postgreen up on Facebook. This video was produced by Reel Stuff and the production value does a nice job of making us look better and smarter then we actually are . . . just like it does for movie stars.
2. Speaking of Facebook, Postgreen now has its own page. Check it out, become a fan and be on the short list for all of our future events and happenings.
3. The Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit is coming up and I’m speaking at it . . . twice. Monday, Oct. 5 at 11 a.m. I’ll be giving a short Pecha Kucha (think Ignite Philly) talk on the 100k Project. Then, on Tuesday, I’ll be on a panel on “Green Aesthetic” at 10:30. That one will include a short presentation on problems as points of inspiration. Sign up for the conference and come make me feel good about myself.
4. I’m also doing a little more speaking for the Design Week shindig. Come to Coldwell Banker Preferred at 223-225 Market Street on Thursday Oct. 8 at 6:00 for refreshments and a little talk on delivering design, sustainability and choice in housing to a market that has seldom seen any of those things. Lynne Templeton from Greenable will also be in the house.
5. I’m not the only one talking. Chad will also be doing a talk at the Passive House Conference in Urbana, Il. If you’re headed out there, be sure to check out his take on Passive House from a for-profit, developer standpoint.

Alright, that’s it for now. Let us know in the comments if you’re coming to any of these events and we’ll keep an eye out for you.

As we continue to fill our homes with amenities previously only available in public spaces, we increase our separation from our community. Movie theaters have moved into the home, and with the help of Netflix and streaming video, one doesn’t even need to go to a video store. With the increasing ubiquity of cable television, every sporting event can be delivered directly to your TV making a trip to the local pub unnecessary. Add the gigantic media room and you don’t even have to deal with strangers to watch the game with your friends. Pool tables, dart boards, horseshoes and other games of skill have plenty of space to exist in the home and the surrounding expanse of yard. Combined with driveway basketball courts and backyard soccer goals, public parks see less and less use. Now, I am no Luddite, and I certainly don’t begrudge anyone some in-house games of skill, but I wonder whether this ability for self contained entertainment is injuring our socialization skills or, since I now have one on the way, those of our children.

We also see this compartmentalization in aspects of our lives outside the home. Online shopping keeps us out of retail areas, and while I can’t blame anyone for avoiding the malls and box stores, these are moments of interaction. For my part, I will say better moments might occur in the downtown shopping districts and main street environment, but regardless, these are times when we are outside our insulated shells, generating shared experience.

Cars shelter us from others as we travel to work (unlike buses, trains or walking), and cubicles continue the job when we get there. Even when we do enter a public space, we continue to surround ourselves with ourselves through our phones, iPods and video games.

I realize that this isn’t a new idea, and I realize that some of what I’m saying makes me sound like my grandfather after a day with his tech-savvy grandkids. I also know that this sort of thing has gone on for some time with books instead of iPods, carriages instead of cars, guarded castles instead of gated communities, but I would argue that the scope of our separation has increased. We have made a larger portion of our society into a semi-cloistered aristocracy, and we have done so with greater thoroughness than was possible in the past.

I would argue that there are important skills that go undeveloped when social interaction decreases. Diplomatic abilities atrophy. Compromise becomes a foreign idea. Selfishness becomes less a vice and more a reasonable trait because, after all, the self is dominant in isolation. Reasoned debate is based on the simplest of social skills and it suffers from lack of exercise. Empathy withers from disuse. Community becomes increasingly faceless, the recognizable whittled down to those few that you invite into your enclave . . . dinner guests and relatives.

I don’t necessarily think there is a true remedy for this. Nor do I believe that the components of this increased isolation are, in and of themselves, bad. I merely wonder at the potential ongoing effect if we continue along this course. If we keep building bigger, more self-contained homes, if we continue developing better and better means of electronic avoidance, if we are unable to free ourselves from the private automobile’s domination of our infrastructure, then what do we lose? For what will we become less equipped?

I will end with an opinion you have probably come to expect from me. I believe that part of the way we can return balance to our relationship with our community is by addressing the way we live, by looking, particularly, at housing and transportation. A reduction of home size and amenities is not only an ecological imperative, but a social one. It forces us out into the public sphere where we can share in the consumption of resources while we simultaneously interact to build relationships, understanding and social skills. The same is true with public transit and walking. Buses may teach us important, if somewhat unpleasant, lessons that cars have no ability to deliver. This naturally leads us to a denser, more urban way of living. Shared open space trumps backyards. Train lines are a higher priority than roads. Sidewalks are king. We improve the environment and increase the complexity and concreteness of our social relationships. Shouldn’t the benefits follow?

Now, I realize, as always, that I am not really qualified to pontificate on these matters. But, I know some of you out there are. So, tell me . . . Where am I right? Where am I wrong? What have I missed that adds to my argument? What have I ignored that undermines it?

Get into those comments.

Essentially, I want what every right minded person wants; a loving family, meaningful work, good health and my very own beer tap. The first three seem to be the main topics of virtually every self-help book, and yet, the last is almost always over-looked. Why? Do we not realize the profound effect of fresh draft beer on the human soul? Do we somehow imagine that the can, the bottle, the gross-plastic-things-they-sell-at-ballparks can replace the wonder that is foaming, cascading tap-poured beer?

Besides, isn’t a keg more environmentally friendly? No bottles or cans to throw out or, in the best case, recycle. Kegs are cleaned and reused, just like the beautiful glassware into which their sweet nectar is poured. Packaging is significantly lower with less in the way of labels and boxes, and there are always tons of good, local brews available (at least around me).

But wait, I hear some of you say, wouldn’t a keg mean . . . an extra refrigerator? A beer fridge? Ahh, there’s the rub. The fridge. The energy sucking, ambient heating, cavern of cool into which I must place my precious kegs to get them to that ever so tasty temperature at which beer should be enjoyed. Worse, to have a real tap I would need to carve a hole in that fridge, a hole through which energy could escape making it less efficient than ever. Fortunately, this is where my superb (play along) idea comes into play.

Five or more feet below the earth’s surface the temperature remains nearly constant at around 50-55 degrees (this varies a bit by region of course). The ideal temperature for enjoying most beers (lagers, fruit beers and wheat beers like it a bit cooler) is 50-55 degrees. Coincidence? I think not. What if, rather than chill our beer with a fridge, we harnessed the earth’s power to maintain our ideal beer temp.? This isn’t a new idea. People have long “cellared” beers underground to cool them to drinkable temps. But if you don’t have a cellar . . .

Essentially, my concept is to create my tap lines out of some sort of conductive tubing and bury long coils in my backyard. The beer would leave my room-temperature keg and flow through the underground coils, exchanging energy with the cool ground. By the time I pulled the beer from my tap it would be cold and delicious. Tasty beer at the perfect temperature with no refrigeration. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?

Now, I admit that I have no idea what the exact logistics of this type of setup might be. How long a run do I need to equalize the temp between the ground and the beer? How do I make the beer flow all that additional distance? Out of what type of material do I make my lines? If you can answer any of these questions, do it in the comments and make my day.