Tale of two Houses..
			 
			 
			
		
		
		
			
			House #1 A 20 room mansion (  not including 8 bathrooms ) heated  
by natural gas.  Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest 
house, all heated by gas.  In one month this residence consumes more  
energy than the average American household does in a year.  The 
average bill for electricity and natural gas  runs over $2400/mo.  In 
natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the 
national average for an American home.  This house is not situated 
in a Northern or Midwestern "snow belt" area.  It's in the South.      
 
  
 
      
 
 
House #2 Designed by an architecture professor at a 
leading national university.  This house  incorporates every 
"green" feature current home construction can  provide.  The house is 
4,000 square feet ( 4 bedrooms ) and  is nestled on a high prairie in the 
American  southwest.  A central closet in the house holds  geothermal 
heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk  300 feet into the 
ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F. )  heats the house in the winter 
and cools it in the summer.  The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or 
natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a 
conventional heating/cooling system.  Rainwater from the roof is collected 
and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern.  Wastewater from 
showers, sinks and  toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then 
into the  cistern.  The collected water then irrigates the land  
surrounding the house.   Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area 
enable the property to blend into the  surrounding rural landscape.      
 
~~~~~ 
HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville, Tennessee; it is the abode of  
the  "environmentalist" Al Gore.    
 
HOUSE #2 is on  a ranch near Crawford, 
Texas; it is the residence the of the President of the United States, 
George W. Bush.
		 
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
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