More Awesome Than You!

I created my first eco-friendly sim for one of my playables to marry, so I thought I would try an eco-friendly house for them to live in. Unfortunately, although this was intended to be a starter home, I haven't played in so long I went a bit mad with all the new goodies. (New to me). So it's ended up being §50K and some small change, even with wanding.

I have the recycle bin, solar panels, a washing line, no computer or TV (he's a technophobe as well) and lots and lots of wood in the build. If I've missed anything for the eco-freaks, do let me know.

It's specifically built with a family in mind, there's a nursery and bunkbeds for the kids with a treehouse outside. It's easily expandable upstairs - I plan to take out one of the bathrooms and install a spiral staircase when the time comes.

Location in Twinbrook - It's not quite a perfectly level section
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/Location.jpg)

Front
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/Front.jpg)

Back
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/Back.jpg)

Top
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/Top.jpg)

Lounge
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/Lounge.jpg)

Kitchen / Dining
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/KitchenDining.jpg)

Bathroom
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/Bathroom.jpg)

Main bedroom
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/MainBedroom.jpg)

Nursery
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/Nursery.jpg)

Kids' Room
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/Kids'Room.jpg)

Download here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/poofs/EcoFriendlyHaus/EcoFriendlyFamilyHome.2BR.2BR.Sims3Pack).

Oooh, verra nice.  I do love me some hardwood floors.

I love it! Especially being a one story house which seem hard to come by these days. I love being able to keep my focus on just one level of a house when playing with my main family. May I ask what size lot is it on? Is there CC besides store stuff? I don't recall seeing the solar panels anywhere before, maybe I just wasn't paying attention. Either way thanks ^_^

I have very little cc besides store stuff, so I'm pretty sure it's all EAxis. Will check lot size later, I think it's 30x40.

30x20, I'm pretty sure.

Could be too, since I was planning a starter.

I am not clear as to what the use of a non-reusable house filled with crappy Kewian-based substitutes is. This does not seem friendly at all.

ACCEPT NO KEWIAN-BASED SUBSTITUTES.

Like Kawaii, I love that it's one-story. It's hard to find one-story lots with 2 beds and 2 baths and space to walk around. The style of the exterior would fit in nicely with the pre-builts in the Dogwood area of Riverview, too.

Nice house, but wood fire polluting the atmosphere and wasting water on a water slide doesn't seem very eco-friendly to me :P

Not to mention the use of Kewian-based substitutes that must inevitably wind up in a landfill.

Nice smart-arse reply, but wood burning stoves are generally considered a much more eco-friendly way of heating your house than using radiators etc.

Pretty sure this depends on where you live. Population, topography, climate and equipment can play a large part in pollution from smoke and particulates,  which in-turn can lead to health issues. As for being considered better than radiators. I think that depends on what form of electricity generation used.


Nothing beats the overpowering smell of glue on a cheap new couch every couple months.

Ok if we're really going to be this pedantic, that stove could be for clean-burning fuel. However, going on the basis that sims don't have council restrictions on fuel-burning, and because if you're going for that level of pretend-legislation in the game you're clearly a bit of a nutjob, I would propose a sim-wood burning stove is fine. Yes, of course if you're getting all your electricity from renewable energy, then the stove can be considered wasteful. However, if we're being this pernickity, even with the solar panels shown in the pictures, it's unlikely such a house could go completely off-grid.

Wood burning stoves are cheap and sustainable, far more so than oil or gas heating. Wood burning stoves are considered to be eco-friendly and are increasingly marketed as such. You may disagree with this, which is fine, but I think you were just trying to be a smart-alec in your original post. It's a sims game, not an architectural blue print.

Definitely true that one of us is being pedantic, and if you're going to start bringing the real world into it, why not do it right in the first place. Put up some numbers, post some evidence. I for one, find it difficult to believe that having billions of houses full of wood-fired stoves and heaters is going to be Environmentally-friendly based on some "marketing", no matter where you live.

As for your inclination to read too much into my comment, I tend to think this simply means you failed to understand the tongue-in-cheek smiley face.

Wood is a renewable resource, coal and oil are not. I agree it depends somewhat on the power generating alternatives as to whether the pollution from wood burning fires is acceptable. Some of our cities in NZ, Christchurch in particular, have had to change building codes for chimneys and fireplaces in order to cut down the pollution. The city is built on a very flat plain with little wind.


PPPBBBRRRTTT!!!

Ok fine, here's a partial list for WHY wood burning stoves are considered a good choice for the environmentally friendly consumer.

1) Wood burning stoves are carbon neutral, in that burning wood only releases the same amount of carbon dioxide as the tree takes in over its lifetime. So as long as you plant trees to offset the ones you're using for firewood, you're fine on that front.

2) Wood is renewable and can be locally produced, lowering transportation costs to the environment.

3) Chopping up firewood requires very little processing.

4) You can now buy "clean-burning" wood stoves which are certified for use in smokeless zones.

I have to work so I can't fish around for actual statistics right now, but I can do so later if you really want me to.
We're not talking "billions of homes", we're talking one eco-home. Did I say stoves were a perfect solution? No. I pointed out that they are considered eco friendly and are therefore hardly incongruous on an eco-friendly lot. Also, it wasn't me who brought real world specifics into it, you brought up climate, population, topography and equipment.

Oh, and for the record I got the tongue in cheek smiley, but you can be both tongue in cheek and WRONG at the same time

Of course, you could have just replied "but that's a fireplace, not a stove" and saved us all this. :P

Uh oh. We know we're in trouble when we have numbered points. I almost said TL;DR, however, 1, 2, 3, 4 are all good points, but that's a shit-load of assumptions about a Sim household. Now I guess I should take into account the construction of a Sim's chimney, materials burnt, how they chop wood and what type of electricity generation they use, but oh-boy, those are all starting to sound a little borderline "nut-job". How about instead we assume that electric heat comes from those solar panels on the roof (there are no power plants in the Sims), so we are comparing burning wood to the power of the Sun. Also I don't see a water tank on the lot, so I'll assume those Sims living within are just being terribly wasteful and running their water 24/7.

Next time I'll ask more questions before making an insignificant comment. Are the window's double-glazed, is the ceiling and floor insulated, what materials have been used in contruction?  I noticed the lack of curtains in some of the windows. Are there separate recycle bins on the lot? Did you know that this bed is a lot more energy efficient than that bed, etcetera.

You're really not getting it. I only gave you a list because you asked for real world details! Actually, you asked for empirical evidence, but like I said, I haven't the time right now. My original point, before you started on about topography and climate - neither of which are factors in the Sims - was that your "wood fire polluting the atmosphere [...] doesn't seem very eco-friendly to me" tease is WRONG. Why not just admit this and then I will happily drop it. Perhaps bringing you up on this was nit-picky, but MATY is nothing if not a picker of nits.

No.

I happily admit that I was not considering topography nor climate in my original comment of Sim wood heating acting as a pollutant. However, as for picking nits, being wrong assumes I was trying to state facts. If you re-read. I said "doesn't seem very eco-friendly to me" (opinion), as in, this house doesn't give the impression (opinion) of being eco-friendly, due to the heating and water slide. Whether or not it actually is eco-friendly is not something I was trying to argue.


Thanks for the info. I shall factor that into my future analysis of power consumption. :P

Here in Tas, particulate pollution is a major concern for health and environment.  It's not difficult to understand that when you see the sheer amount of chimneys burning through the night and smell the air. Many of the homes here still have outdated wood heaters, which are often unsafe and add to pollution. There is a program set in place to replace these heaters, and it is also illegal to re-fit older heaters. We also use Hydro-electric generators, so this also factors as to whether Wood heating is environmentally and economically viable for heating compared to electric heating. Besides having to fight the protesters away from every tree you want to cut down. :)

Her point. You have missed it.

In terms of energy saving, you don't want a double GLAZED window, you want a double PANED window. You know. Two layers of glass and a pocket of air that traps hot air inbetween the glass? Instead of just schelacking a glaze on a single pane of glass?

Also, small side note: What water slide?

It is clear your attempt to be scathing and clever has had the opposite affect you meant it to have. Best to run along and pretend that you didn't post here.

You'd be surprised how unfavourably it compares. The data I was able to gather suggests that 1kg of wood produces on average approximately 1900W when burned in just a normal, non-clean-burning fireplace. A typical solar panel may produce as much as 200W per square metre in ideal conditions. Unless you are getting 24-hour direct equatorial sunlight somehow, it's pretty obvious which one is more efficient and cost-effective. For some reason people always remember that the sun is an enormous ball of ridiculously hot plasma, and forget the little glitch that the intensity of sunlight is basically jack shit by the time it gets here, and on top of that we can only manage to harness a tiny fraction of it.

If you are going to whine about "eco-friendly", at least know what that MEANS first. Besides, no sim house will ever manage to approach real-world standards of environmental stability until you can make a nuclear pile. :D

"Insulated glazing (IG) also known as double glazing are double or triple glass window panes separated by an air or other gas filled space to reduce heat transfer across a part of the building envelope"

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Insulated_glazing

While she was definitely wrong to claim that "double-glazed" was in error, she's not wrong when she calls it "double-paned". Perhaps it's a regional thing, but I see that far more often, and google certainly believes it's a real thing.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=double-paned+window
Not that I mean to imply that google is a scholarly source, of course.

Can I point out that people are arguing the environmental impact of an IMAGINARY HOUSE?  Because I don't think it can be said enough.

I'm sure a lot of it is regional. Such as wood heating here is considered harmful, and leaving the tap running is considered a waste. Which is the basis of my original opinion. It appears every other post was attempt to correct my opinion with facts, but failing to allow for regional differences in environment, power generation, and the likes, which I tried to point out in my second and sixth post. Also pointed out by witch. At no point have I suggested that anyone's facts are wrong, and it's obvious I don't need to.  :)


I tried pointing that out in my 3rd and 4th post. Maybe I should have been more clear. I had never intended my opinion to start a Google fact finding mission to educate me in the environmental impact and power generation of wood. At least this gives me an excuse to up my post count :P

Dude, quit breaking the 4th wall.

Ah, yes, here they are referred to double paned or double hung windows, some even offer TRIPLE paned blah blah blah. My mistake, wasn't aware they were called a different thing elsewhere.  Still doesn't explain your water slide fail. But the back peddling is funny.

"Hurrrrr Nice house, but snarky comment hurrrrr"
"Actually..."
"Hurrrrr Not all the time, because of local topgraphy and climate and other real world things huuuuuuurrrrr"
"Here are some real world facts"
"Huuuuurrrrrrrr it's an imaginary house, why are you bringing up real world stuff? hurrrrrr"

My personal favorite was "I said seemed, so because it was an opinion facts don't apply".

Sims don't need insulation, anyway: Simlandia is isothermal because temperature hasn't been invented yet. It is not hotter inside or outside, everything is the same. No one needs heating or cooling.

Correct me if I'm wrong but is that loud orange thing in the front yard not a water slide? I don't have Generations so I can't say for certain and I admit, until you mentioned it I didn't realize there was a water slide.

No, but there's a waterslide connected to the treehouse.

The loud orange thing is in fact a waterslide AFAIK. I haven't tried the slide yet and if the treehouse has one too, I will remove the loud orange thing.

I was in the subset of 'kidspace' when I was doing the garden and not the subset of 'eco-friendly', yet, when I saw the water spray on the loud orange thing I did have an eco-twinge. We have metered water here and I have been conditioned to be careful with its use.  

ETA: Thanks for the info on the wood fires Sooze, most interesting.

Personally I have given up on some eco-friendly practices in real life. I recently got rid of my $160 per year recycling bin, for instance. I discovered that our town doesn't recycle all classifications of recycling (the number on the bottom of the item is its class), therefore a lot of what I pay to recycle is just chucked in the main rubbish dump anyway. By the time we count in whole boatloads of crap being dumped in the communal oceans, any sacrifice I may make counts for nothing.

I've stopped feeling guilty about driving 20 km a day to work and back when I look at the global number of vehicles clogging the arteries of the world. Hell, I could put myself to a great deal of extra time and inconvenience and catch a diesel spewing bus to work, but what's the point?

I save power only to keep my bills down because when I drive around cities at night I see enough power wastage in lighting and whatnot to cancel out any savings I might make in my lifetime.

And basically, I think it's too late anyway, I think we're fucked, the human race is on the way out. Global warming, the rising oceans and the lack of oil is going to be what does us in. I don't understand why everyone isn't in a panic about this.

It doesn't look to me as if the tree house slide has water attached.

Where I'm from, a lawn that lush would not be considered 'eco-friendly', but I know that's not true of everywhere or most Sim worlds.  If someone has a dryer Sim world, xeriscaping that lot wouldn't be hard.

You can have lush lawns with a grey water / rainwater tank.

ANYWAY.

I like the house Witch, I will snag it for when I get Generations installed.

Eco-friendly Sims get a negative moodlet if they use a water slide.

From what I can see the treehouse slide is just a normal one but you'll have to confirm. Just FYI I do think the house is lovely and will download it once I have GEN, the "loud orange thing" comment wasn't a reflection on the house.

Cheers for the heads-up Madame Mim.

I'm not minding the comments or the debate, I did ask for it, after all.

I maintain that the most ecologically friendly method of heating your house is with computers. Since you needed a computer anyway, the heat is free and costs nothing. It is certainly better than any form of electrical heater, which just wastes electricity and produces heat without producing any computing. In fact, just about ANY electrical appliance is better at producing heating than a heater. At least some actual WORK is being done before the endproduct emerges as heat.

And I suppose if you wanted to power a waterslide in an ecologically friendly manner, you'd use used showerwater. That way it already has the required soap that you apparently need.

In fact you could have a showerslide from the top to the bottom of the house. Hop out of bed and showerslide down to the wardrobe.

The most energy efficient house would of course be built underground, but then some of us who own bunkers have already thought of that.

It appears you aren't aware of many things. The water slide is the thing on the lawn, with water, that Sims slide on. Though I'm sure enough people have informed you already.

Interesting that even with all these real world facts, there is still no one here that has proven my comment wrong. In fact, even witch has agreed (below) with my points of regional differences and types of power generations, as well as that water slide you failed to see.

Keep trying.


Just to reiterate and clarify. It is a nice Generations equipped house. It simply didn't jump out and say eco-friendly to me. While this maybe down to regional based opinion, and lifestyle, it's still an opinion. No amount of trivial debate can change that.

Actually, it's a terrible Generations-equipped house. ACCEPT NO KEWIAN-BASED SUBSTITUTES!

I agree that Generations has landed us with a heap of nice-looking Kewian-based rubbish.

I'm curious as to why no one brought this up, I think about this from time to time. Do you ever wonder what on earth humans can do to dig themselves out of this huge hole?


Anyways, nice house :)

I certainly don't blame China and India for not wanting to stop developing, and anything the US, UK, and Australia do is pointless in the face of that, unless the things done is stop acting like they can control the weather and start acting like they are intelligent and innovative and start innovating already.  The US sits on obscene amounts of natural gas, and if we had the cojones to get to it and use it, it wouldn't be nearly as expensive to switch to it as it would to switch to developing and therefore expensive technologies.

We'll see what happens if the sun enters another Grand Minimum as some suspect.

Put up a few windmills godammit. It'll help the cute solar panels.

Besides, for a house this size, you need panels on every square inch of roof surface to do anything at all, and the enormous cost of those panels will never be actualized in saving the current generation any money. Here in Florida it costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $35,000.00 to fit solar panels on a modest sized home. The roof will be covered with them. They will power everything EXCEPT air conditioning, which is needed at least 6 months a year. During the winter, the home will be completely off the grid and the power company is required to pay back the energy that they then use for others. Grid based power consumption is reduced, not eliminated.

Keep the wood burning stove. There are dark days during and after hurricanes when no sun is to be seen and no power to be had. Strictly biased by location, of course. Or you could just use an outdoor grill like I do.

Speaking of which (!) Is there any way to make grills more versatile with recipes? I learned to cook just about anything over an open fire during several hurricanes, from breakfast to soups and full dinners. 

I absolutely love your lots Witch, I hope you're willing to share more of them in the future.

ETA: I'm not at all concerned about the human race. In fact I embrace the day we'll get wiped out. The only reason I would panic is that I probably won't live long enough to see it happen. I mean come on, we had our chance and we crewed up big time. The world is much better off without us.

Wow, what a whiny fucking loser attitude.  Sack up.

Did it occur to anyone that a Sims stove could be filled with something other than wood but just as renewable - like Sims' bones, for instance? Actually MORE renewable than trees as in our Sims games they can't go out and chop down a tree for firewood...  :P

No, that never occurred to me because I don't say weird things in an attempt to seem edgy.

Was tit-lights trying to be edgy? I was drawn to trying to decipher her sig and couldn't spare much for her actual post. I know I'll just be lumped in with all the other <s>obviously ignorant</s> people who criticise her <s>incredible witticisms</s>, but;

re sig
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/crapola/pancake_bunny.jpg)

Try again with a consistent sentence structure please.

No, because that would be stupid.