Alternative Home Construction

Just want to be home

HACIPASA, on the Turkish-Syrian border - A group of men sat on a dirt mound Sunday and watched quietly as final touches were applied to the tent camp outside the town of Hacipasa, to which they were evacuated two hours earlier. They still haven't come to terms with the fact that suddenly, without warning, their status has been radically altered, and they have no idea when they will see their homes again. Weeks? Months? Years?

The packs of cigarettes beside them are still from Syria and carry a health warning in Arabic. By tomorrow they will have to switch to Turkish cigarettes. In the meantime, they feel the new situation above all as an affront. They are not political activists, certainly not professional demonstrators. But they are very angry at their president, Bashar Assad, for having caused them to lose their homes in Jisr al-Shughour and forcing them to flee across the border.

They would not have considered demonstrating against him for ideological reasons. "It started with them arriving in the city from outside, on Monday, with two busloads of Assad supporters carrying his pictures and demanding that we take part in a march of support," Moussa Abdu says. "They also brought in soldiers, but the people just weren't ready for that. So they started shooting."

The demonstrations in Daraa three months ago, which marked the start of the bloody clashes in Syria's outlying cities, started in much the same way. The police arrested a few children, aged 10 through 12, who had scrawled graffiti slogans on walls. Their clan reacted with furious demonstrations, and from there the situation deteriorated into a violent struggle, and army units were sent in to perpetrate a massacre in the southern city.

The opposition groups and the intellectuals in the major cities of Damascus and Aleppo have not yet succeeded in getting more than a few thousand demonstrators into the streets. The massive events took place in the provincial cities, where the arrogant behavior of the security forces and the Assad supporters enraged entire populations.

After having pitted themselves against soldiers and police, lost relatives and in some cases all their property as well, even now the new refugees say they do not know who they want to see in power in Syria or which regime they would prefer over the Baath, which has ruled for more than four decades. "All we want is to go back to our homes and to be rid of the cursed Bashar," is the kind of thing they say.

My Own Solar System: Installing Solar Panels at My House | Eco ...

Most people would be happy to cut their monthly utility bills in half or eliminate them altogether. While commercial alternative energy systems can cost more than $10,000, installing solar panels at your house yourself can be dramatically less expensive. Simple tools, materials available at local hardware stores and lumber yards and easy design and construction skills are all that you need to add solar power to your home.

Do your homework before you begin your home solar energy project. Review renewable energy incentives at www.energystar.gov, find out about state incentives at http://www.dsireusa.org/index.cfm and find out about energy efficient mortgages at http://hes.lbl.gov/hes/makingithappen/financing.html. Your solar project may qualify for state and/or federal tax credits, rebates, grant programs, subsidies or pilot energy programs. Review the last one to two years’ monthly service on utilities to know your usage, help choose the size system you want to install and calculate your payback period. In “Solar Power Your Home for Dummies,” Rik DeGunther claims that you can expect to recover nearly 100 percent of your investment in solar and that the home improves in value equal to the amount of the investment.

Depending on your plans for solar energy, you can build a new home with solar systems for heating and cooling, electricity and water heating, convert an existing home to solar and renewable energy systems, or you can start small to try out solar energy first. If you want to permanently reduce or eliminate your heating bills, install radiant heat flooring connected to a solar water panel collection system, and reduce air conditioning needs with a simple airflow system. You may want to go big and install an off-grid system to generate all the energy your home consumes and even sell excess to the utility companies. Or start small with a 3- to 6-panel array of solar panels , a storage battery and a power inverter to start immediately generating usable electricity to power appliances or a small greenhouse.

Some solar panels use photovoltaic cells to capture solar energy and turn it into an electric current stored in a battery and used by plugging into a power inverter. Some solar panels use water (or some other fluid such as oil) flowing through tubes under glass or shiny metal fins that conduct the sun’s heat to the fluid to heat it and transfer warmth. Solar panels generate energy measured in watts or kilowatts, so you should know how much energy in watts you want to generate and what the output is of the panels you want to buy or build.

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