Going Green: Low Impact Woodland House
Doesn’t this home look like somewhere one of the Hobbits would live? Or some Woodland fairies?
This is home to a couple and their two young children. It is a completely green home. Solar panels provide electricity. A composting toilet. No running water. Straw bale insulation. Heated solely by a wood burning stove. The refrigerator is cooled using the naturally cooled air underneath the foundation.
The home is dug into a hill, with sod used for the roof.
Would you like to live there? Well, they are building an eco-village in Southern Wales.
And they are not alone. In the UK there are groups of people who are living in low impact developments. Cae Mabon is a community with breathtakingly beautiful roundhouses.
There is a huge green living movement afoot. And while this type of home and lifestyle is at the extreme, I think that most of us are looking for ways to reduce our energy consumption. For many of us it may be based solely on a selfish desire to lower our energy bills, but for these select few it is born out of a desire to have a zero impact on the earth.
All of us can probably learn from it.
