This idea has several sub-thoughts that are loosely related. I’ve lived in a townhouse for more than five years now, and here are some things that I think could be improved.
Basement/Garage
I’ve lived in a townhouse for the past five years, and, in general, I’m quite happy with the layout of my unit and the development as a whole. One problem in the area is parking. Despite each unit having a two car garage, there is always a shortage of parking space around some of the buildings. I soon realized that one cause of this problem is that many people have a bunch of crap in their garage, or have more than two vehicles that need to be parked. So I would like to see townhouses developed where the entire garage and basement is combined into a single uninterrupted space that is two car lengths deep. This way people could more easily store their garage related items while still parking two vehicles in the garage. This large space would also allow four cars to be parked in the garage– in a two by two configuration. OK, so maybe it couldn’t “officially” be called a four car garage, but people looking at buying a unit could see the possibilities. Can someone get on that? Thanks!
Radiant Heating
This has been around for a while now where deep wells are dug near a building and loops of plastic tubes are placed in the holes. The holes are filled back up and a mixture of water and antifreeze is pumped down the wells and back up. The constant temperature of the ground can be used to cool or heat building through more tubes running beneath the upper floors. This is a really good system requiring minimal electricity to move the liquid, but digging the wells can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Would it be possible to build a house with tubes running in the concrete foundation and connecting to the tubes in the floors? If there is enough thermal mass in the floor of the basement it could cut the cost of radiant heating by an order of magnitude by eliminating the expensive drilling step.
Keeping Houses Cool
In the summer time a lot of houses can get hot, and people spend a lot of time and money to keep this from happening. Houses get hot inside in part because the sun is shining on the outside part of the house. (That’s not exactly rocket science there) Making houses that reflect most of that light instead of absorbing it would result in a much cooler house. How about taking a few thousand blank CDs, tying them together to create a flat, hexagonal pattern, and sticking it to the roof during the summer. This would reflect most of the energy off the roof and lower the temperature of the house. If that works, someone could manufacture inexpensive interlocking reflective plastic squares to make the process even easier. I would try this myself, but I would like to avoid a lengthy legal dispute with my homeowner’s association.
Katherine and I took a short road trip to Saratoga Springs, Wyoming in August just to get away for a few days. About three hours drive from Loveland, Colorado, this town consisted of some hot springs, two gas stations, a handful of hotels, and a few hundred people who seemed to have taken up residence here for their own personal reasons. We booked a room at the hotel which included access to several hot tubs and a large pool filled with mineral water. Some of the hot tubs were mostly covered with teepee-like structures that gave a large amount of privacy, just in case, say, you and your partner needed some alone time to, oh, review old tax returns or exchange highly sensitive military intelligence.
The hotel room had its own share of peculiarities. In addition to the queen sized bed, much of the room was occupied by a large rustic looking armoire. I’m not sure if it was real rustic or fake rustic– around here it could go either way. Inside the armoire is a very medium sized television set. A shelf above the television is a shelf bowing under the weight of a large VCR with, if carbon dated, would probably be traced backed to the early 1980s. I can’t remember ever having been in a hotel room with a VCR. We got all the standard cable channels, some better than others– perhaps a sign of a few too many sets connected to the cable feed. All the network channels were based in Denver, which kind of negated the feeling that we were out in the middle of nowhere. Or at least as much of nowhere that is left these days. Come to think about it, we did pass a large Walmart distribution center about 60 miles from town, so somewhere is getting closer all the time.
The only other notable attribute of the hotel was the high pressure nozzle on the shower. This device literally separates the water molecules into individual atoms before shooting them out at a velocity approaching the speed of light. This causes the water to assume wavelike properties and travel straight through my body, the tub, the subfloor, and so on until it slows down somewhere, I suspect, near the molten core of the planet.
While somewhat limited in our dining choices, we found a rather small-townsy type place that served a small selection of breakfast options. We must have come during the morning rush, because the one waiter was overwhelmed trying to take care of everyone. When the shelf of clean coffee mugs became empty, one of the customers cleaned up a few tables, took everything into the kitchen, and came back out in a few minutes with a dozen clean mugs. That’s what I like about visiting small towns– well, that and we didn’t see a single mugging or car-jacking.
Following the success of the show, “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant,” The Learning Channel greenlighted a sister show titled, “I Thought I Was Pregnant But It Turns Out I Was Just Getting Fat Really Quickly After My Boyfriend Dumped Me And I Just Sat Around On The Couch Eating Microwave Pizza and Twinkies All Day Long Waiting For A Miracle To Occur.”