Mt Best - mtbest.net

Greenhouse Our geodetic dome double-glazed greenhouse allows us to grow food all year round. It is automatically irrigated and ventilated.

House in the forest

Energy efficiency tips for your household How do we use energy in our homes? Most energy in our homes is used for heating and hot water. For this reason these systems should be addressed first. Tips below are listed in the order of their best effect for minimum investment.

80% efficient wood stove? Can a wood stove be efficient? Is there a way to increase the efficiency of a wood stove? Not everything in our house is high-tech. For those cold winter days that are not sunny we have a low-tech method to warm up the house. Just because a wood stove is considered […]

3-phase pressurized water system for off-grid home At my Mt Best residence I collect and store rainwater at the top of a hill some 30m above my house and garden and this enables me to avoid using pumps. For my friends and neighbors, who do not have a suitable hill nearby, I designed an efficient […]

Bubble glazing Whenever financial aspects take precedence - availability of resources seems to be a disincentive for progress in sustainability and conservation. When we can afford more – we simply waste more, without even admitting for consideration that Earth is a system of limited resources. The opposite direction on the other hand – aiming to […]

Chest fridge Using vertical doors in refrigeration devices is an act against the Nature of Cold Air. Understanding and cooperating with Nature rather than acting against it leads to much better efficiency. My chest fridge (Vestfrost freezer turned into a fridge) consumes about 0.1 kWh a day. It works only about 2 minutes per hour. […]

Worm farm We are proud of our A&A worm farm system. It is a complete aerobic (ventilated) eco-system that processes all our organic waste and never needs emptying or any attention. It is also a complete grey water processing system. Grey water sips by gravity to special trenches that water our lawn. The worm farm […]

Our solar hot water system Installing solar hot water system is an important step to minimize greenhouse emissions while achieving energy self-sufficiency. Even though we have our own electricity supply (wind + sun power station) we have chosen the system that does not require recirculating pump to function and hence does not require any external […]

Insulated floor We built our RAL home on suspended floor, because a house with such a floor provides minimal possible footprint on the environment (no bulldozing). However, suspended floor can waste a lot of precious energy in winter, especially on windy days. For this reason we insulated the floor with aluminum foil based fiberglass wool […]