Next steps

Now that we are on the last mile,  there are some things that we need to take care of:

• all old carpets need to be taken off and thrown away. Then the wooden floor need to be cleaned and new linoleum/carpets/alternatives put in.
• old wallpapers need to be replaced
• most of the wood surfaces in the house need to be repainted in lighter colors (white)
• two rooms (one of each floor) need to be converted into bathrooms
• get a quote for the infrared heaters from another company, the current one is too expensive
• get a quote for an Airmax24 Wind Turbine because we want to make our own electricity (or at least enough for the heating, it complements perfectly the infrared heaters)

We investigated all kind of possibilities to make our own energy, considering that we currently pay 20,25 cents/kWh and I don’t think it’s gonna go down anytime soon. Solar panels are not a good solution for us, the roof has the wrong orientation. Not to mention they are expensive and need a lot of maintenance. The wind turbine I was mentioning is roof-mountable and can start generating electricity with a wind speed of only 2m/s. It has its own price too but it has a lot more advantages compared to the solar panels. It looks something like this:

Other alternatives would be household Fusion Reactors, anti-matter generators, Zero Point Module, etc but it seems we are born in the wrong reality or way too early for something like this. And finally a picture I took while I was going to lunch, cold but beautiful weather, I love that blue sky:

Infrared heating

Today we finally managed to set up an appointment with the guy from whom we will (most likely) buy the infrared heaters. He brought with him a small heater, as a sample, to see what the fuss is all about:

The heaters come either with different designs on them (as in the picture), with glass/mirror surface or just plain white. From what we’ve read and from what the guy explained, the whole thing works as follows. Infrared heaters work on the electromagnetic energy tranfer principle, and not by directly heating the air like a normal heater does. The heater emits infrared energy which is absorbed (i.e. heats) the walls and the stuff you have in your room: furniture, big objects, etc.

The walls and furniture reflect the infrared energy but they also store it, thus getting warm. The heating is done without heating the air directly which is an advantage because the convection effect is almost completely avoided. That means there is much less air movement throughout the room, which moves the dust and creats pockets of cold and hot air; the room is uniformly heated. Besides, this is much better for us since it appears that human body like better indirect heat. Something like this:

The heaters themselves are basically panels several centimeters thick which you simply connect to the electrical grid (normal power socket). They have also built in termostats so that you can maintain a constant room temperature.

We also went to the house where we measured the rooms (again) so that the guy can have a complete overview. The power of the heater is chosen based on the volume of the room which needs to be heated. And that was basically it. Now we wait for an offer which will empty our bank account with the complete costs.