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				 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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