My parents will be quick to tell you that as a teenager I was one to spend 10-15 minutes in the shower without much thought. Why not? There's plenty of water, and power to heat it, and besides I had more important things to do like adolescence and general self-indulgence.
I can't recall where it started (blog entries say
attempting to stop phone book deliveries in 2004) but there was a true shift in my and Liz's thinking towards such matters when it became abundantly apparent that our existence here is transient, and we are but caretakers of the planet awaiting to hand it to our children. It did happen
before we had children, but I've read stories of new parents who do go through this sudden understanding that they had best start looking after the world their children are going to live in.
So we
purchased a car that was amongst the most efficient on the market at the time, and could run on biofuels (it got me to the station this morning, and hasn't skipped a beat since new). We
installed water tanks in our suburban home, plumbed to the entire house - almost unheard of at the time. We massively reduced our consumption of
water and energy, I took the train to work on the days I wasn't cycling, and pretty much every decision we made became more focused on the future of the planet than just raw lowest cost. (Summary from
2007 here)
Somewhere along the line we wanted a power meter. I found one online at
the Alternate Technology Association's website, and while browsing there stumbled across two things that were to shape our future very strongly:
- Sanctuary magazine - a house build magazine entirely focused on sustainable design. The pictures were of course gorgeous, but more importantly proved that for somewhat sensible budgets it was possible to build sustainably, with many different materials and technologies.
- The YourHome Design Guide - this looked interesting enough that I ordered a copy. When it arrived I devoured every page, amazed that someone out there - in government no less - has produced a bible on how to build every aspect of a house to minimise energy inputs while maximising occupant comfort. I remember saying to Liz "wow, after reading that we pretty much have to build, surely no houses already on the market are built like that already.
Turns out I was right - we
moved to Picton to rent while we worked out what to do - the initial plan wasn't to build, it was actually to buy and live on a cheap mortgage - but every house we looked at we just couldn't bring ourselves to ignore how poorly designed they were. Over-large, poorly insulated, stupidly oriented, ugly brick, the list of sins was too great after our minds had been converted to what is possible when building from scratch sustainably.
So, we went looking for and eventually
purchased a block of land, and the rest is about to be (our) history.
I'd had hoped that by 2011 all homes would be built to sensible standards, but in our discussions we still found most builders, and certainly almost all bulk package home builders view sustainability as just adding a water tank to the side of your 400m2 fully-airconditioned 100-downlight McMansion. That approach is going to look a little odd with the power price hikes we are all about to face.