DIY Green Building

From: KQED
Series: QUEST
Length: 04:59

On the frontiers of green building Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: DIY Green Building
From: KQED

Diygreenbuilding_small Forget solar panels - how about having your own wind turbine? Your own solar thermal power generator? Your own geothermal well? San Francisco homeowners are some of the first to experiment with these DIY home-energy technologies, and they are getting some help from the city to do it.

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Piece Description

Forget solar panels - how about having your own wind turbine? Your own solar thermal power generator? Your own geothermal well? San Francisco homeowners are some of the first to experiment with these DIY home-energy technologies, and they are getting some help from the city to do it.

Broadcast History

Aired twice during morning edition "B" Segment, locally

Transcript

Ambi: dog panting sit down, lay down jet all the way down jet..
While Jet, the boxer, settles down near his feet, Chris Beaudoin (Bode-Weah)?
Ambi: spinning the turbine (faint)
? spins the seven-foot tall plastic wind turbine he?s mounted on the roof of his garage near Twin Peaks in San Francisco.
BEAUDOIN Is that fun? Yeah! Sometimes I come down to see if it?s still working!
Beaudoin?s wind turbine looks nothing like those big whirling propeller blades you see on Altamont Pass by 580. Instead, it?s a narrow, gray cylinder, made of two vertical plastic strips, twisted around each other like a DNA helix.
Beaudoin, who works as a flight attendant, says that to him, the turbine looks like sculpture - which is a good thing, because at about 18 thousand dollars, this rig will not come cheap. But then, Beaudion?s always been a wind guy?
BEAUDOIN I?ve always enjoyed wind from...
Read the full transcript

Timing and Cues

Suggested host intro:

We?ve heard plenty over the last few months about how the traditional housing market is collapsing. But here?s one home industry that?s actually on the rise: Green building, like solar panels and energy efficient homes. And while government subsidies drive part of that innovation, there?s someone else to thank: Regular homeowners and Do It Yourself-ers willing to try out new technologies. From KQED in San Francisco, Amy Standen reports.