Denver's Street Grid is Efficient, Charming and Shouldn't Have Been Abandoned

A Rectilinear street grid is usually the most efficient layout for a city.

However, my observations of cities haven't convinced me that the grid is always the best form.  If you have lots of mixed use and high density, a grid makes destinations easier to find, and its porosity makes the perfect pressure relief valve for those peak traffic times.

Paris, Rome, and Sydney don't have grids.
They are interesting and walkable.  Historically, they were a bit hard to navigate for the newcomer.  GPS has fixed that, even for pedestrians.  Their streets grew organically around the topography and without much planning.  A grid for them would increase utility at the expense of charm.

There's an old neighborhood in Denver called Bonnie Brae that was planned in about 1910 and built out over the next three decades.  It has curvilinear streets, a diagonal collector road, but no cul-de-sacs.  It was designed this way because the private developer thought it would be more interesting, charming, and exclusive than the surrounding grid neighborhoods.  He was right, even though many backyards were reduced to skimpy triangles.

In the 50's & 60's this charm was noticed by the suburban developers, and they replicated the style in their new automobile suburbs, added gates, cul-de-sacs, and high speed perimeter thoroughfares.  The charm and walkabilty were utterly destroyed by the car-centric design.

So the grid makes city planning and development easier and more predictable, but folks will eventually get a little bored with it, and it doesn't make a better city by itself.

PS.  Don't ever make Denver's mistake of putting in one-way streets to expedite traffic.  Most of them have been put back to the way they originally were, two way.  Also never give in to the folks who live close to the thoroughfares and want traffic on their streets to be limited some way.  The extra traffic they suffer with a couple hours per day causes greater benefit of reduced congestion for the city as a whole.

LED Bulbs Now Available and Affordable

Spotted today at Home Depot, Dimmable!

Beyond Net Zero?

Now that a run-of-the-mill homebuilder can offer a net zero energy cost home, you might consider going beyond net zero.  Your house could generate more energy than it uses, and actually put money in your pocket.

How much could you make?  Well, according to these rules,  you can't install more than 20% excess solar capacity, and they will only pay you wholesale prices for it:




CALCULATION OF BILLING FOR NET METERING SERVICE
Net Metering shall be, for billing purposes, the net
consumption as measured at the Company’s service meter.
However, in the event net metering is negative such that the
Eligible Energy Resource’s production is greater than the
Customer’s consumption in any month, the Company will not
credit Customer for such negative consumption. The negative
consumption shall be considered as energy available to offset
consumption in subsequent months. However, in the event that
such negative consumption balance remains at the end of a
calendar year, Company will pay Customer for such negative
consumption balance at the rate that reflects the Company’s
average hourly incremental cost of electricity supply over the
most recent calendar year. Payment shall be made within sixty
(60) days of the end of each calendar year, or within sixty
(60) days of when the customer terminates its retail service.
Customer may make a one-time election, in writing, to have the
Company carry forward the Customer’s negative consumption as a
credit from month to month indefinitely until the customer
terminates service, at which time no payment shall be made by
the Company for any remaining negative consumption balance.


For new construction, you could make a high guess at your consumption, and maybe get away with more that the 120% limit.

Simplest Split Solar System Ever?

As you may know, I was originally trained as a Solar Engineer (solar water and air heating).  In the early 80's, we learned a lot of things on our own because:

1.  Manufacturers supplied only components, not complete systems.

2.  Because every house is different, every installation is unique, causing mistakes and "issues".

In my opinion, the solar water heating industry has still not  matured.  Because systems currently cost too much, they aren't being installed as often as they should (which is on every house in the Denver area).  For high volume uptake to occur, NREL says the installed price needs to be between $1,000 and $3,000, not the $6,000-$11,000 that you typically find.

Recently, I've been back to learning things on my own, and collaborating with folks like genius Steve Baer.
Some of us have been working on solar system simplification.  One simple domestic hot water system that  has tested successfully is depicted in the video on YouTube below.   If your house has the right configuration, I can install this system for you for $1850-$2600 with a 5 year warranty.  It may be simple, but it requires some high tech to succeed.  The collector we must use has the lowest heat loss coefficient of any mass marketed panel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5rKLsJl3cY

CFLs Suck Update

There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that CFLs can cause seizures, rashes and cancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamps_and_health

I know some people who "hate the light" from CFLs.   Since the color problems have been mostly solved, I think the subliminal flickering is what they object to.

Unfortunately, these problems are also shared with high performance T5 & T8 fluorescent tubes, which are very efficient and economical.  Affordable and long lasting LED tube replacement bulbs are coming eventually, so I'd still recommend tube fixtures where appropriate.

Single Family REITs

If you have been following this blog, you know that I'm advocating the rebuilding of "inner ring suburbs" vs. new subdivision development.

A new report from Morgan-Stanley picks up on a trend I've noticed in the past few years in Southwest Denver:
That rents are now much higher than ownership costs.

Right now is a rare time in history that institutional investors can make an exceptional return by investing in single family homes.

When it's time for the REITs to sell their assets, the idled large homebuilders are the logical buyers.

The Folly of Suburban Greenfield Development

Green building in Denver isn't just about the home itself.  The location of the house can be four times more important for the carbon footprint, making it the single most important topic for this blog and for cities in general.  We're not alone in this opinion.  The TED prize has announced next year's winner, The City 2.0.

So what to do with all the land that the big builders have reserved for exurban single family homes?  Apparently the farmers are buying it back at a steep discount for farming

If this topic gets you agitated, then read this article from Atlantic Cities.   It's loaded with links to important studies that support a greener homebuilding paradigm*:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2011/12/missing-link-climate-change-single-family-suburban-homes/650/

* the greener paradigm doesn't involve electric cars and photovoltaics in the exurbs.  My favorite study is the one that shows people are happier if they can walk, not drive, for daily life.