I continue to blog on the great pictures and notes that my brother in law sends updating family and friends on the home they are building themselves in northern Wyoming. Not many people can say they built their home themselves and really mean it! Way to go Chip and gang… keep the updates [...]

We have been busy. It has taken us forever to rough in the electrical work. To date we have run well over 2000 feet of 14-2 wire, 500′ of 12-2 wire, 150′ of 8 gauge wire, 100′ of 10 gauge wire, 750′ of CAT 5 communications cable, 500′ and counting of plenum rated [...]

The Millers continue to plug away at building a new energy efficient home themselves…

Do it yourself home construction continues.

When traveling in the northern New Mexico area, one stop along the way that you won’t want to miss is the Visitors Center for Earthship homes. These structures are very interesting.
Earthships are buildings that are designed to be built with recycled materials. These structures take green living to it’s extreme. Each structure is basically old tires packed with earth and stacked on top of one another to form walls.

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Tom chose to put 8, 4 foot by 4 foot  windows on the south side of the new addition.  The solid steel framed windows will allow the southern sun to come in and heat this part of the building.  Tom also included two slide windows with built in screens on the west and north walls [...]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Tips By Tom is proud to bring you information on alternative energy.  To kick things off, here is a video shot and edited by our friend at www.solardave.com, Dave Dugdale.Â
This massave solar energy site is located in southern Colorado.Â
In future articles, we will be exploring various ways to heat, cool, move, and generate things [...]

Replacing a wind powered device with solar device can be tricky.  In this video, Tom explains to Dave Dugdale (www.solardave.com) how he put solar panels on an old windmill.  The device powers a pump for water.
The solar panels can be unplugged to allow for a generator to take over on cloudy days.  Tom explains why the windmill is [...]