Frustration, Misunderstanding and Delay – Oh, My!

To be honest, even for us in the field, it is sometime frustrating how slow the process goes at times.

Don’t Waste That Beer!

In Wisconsin we LOVE our beer! it is practically running in our blood! Here it is almost a law that you cannot waste our precious brew, we have many ways to use it when it is past its prime (not that we ever let it get there). Incase you happen to stumble upon a stale [...]

Electric Motorcycle with Biodiesel Sidecar Generator

Carl Vogel, a Harley enthusiast and inventor-entrepreneur has converted a Harley Davidson to be fully electric, the Electra Cruiser. The bike can travel 60 miles on one charge while reaching speeds up to 85 mph. Vogel arranged the bikes’ chassis to accommodate 10 lead-acid batteries that hold electricity from a three hour charge using an [...]

Increase Fuel Efficiency while Having Fun

There are many average motorcycles getting only 35-40 miles per gallon but it is possible to go 60 mpg or greater, depending on the engine and the fuel type. This is a vast improvement on most cars and a whole lot more fun. But there are ways to increase your cycles efficiency, like:

* Skip the [...]

Harley Davidson is LEEDing the Way

Frieze Harley-Davidson of O’Fallon Illinois is the first Harley Davidson Dealership to be awarded Gold Status in the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). The dealership was constructed using Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) for exterior walls providing excellent soundproofing and structural strength, very high energy efficiency and healthier indoor air [...]

Good Grub

As American’s we like to mix food with pleasure, whether we are cruising around the country side on our bikes, snowmobiling in the winter or just hanging with friends. A lot of our regular activities seem to involve a bite to eat.

How do you stay green while having fun? Buy local! Supporting local restaurants and [...]

Windows are meant to bring in light not water

There are two pressing problems with our existing building that are typical issues with many older homes – the windows and the insulation.
Although the exterior walls have cutting edge insulation for their time, there have been vast improvements on how the insulation meets the windows. In our home, the windows are set into exterior foam [...]

Beemers Go Green

BMW Group is working to lower their fleet fuel consumption by decreasing the weight of automobiles and also with the companies alternative drive concept CleanEnergy. They are taking into account the life cycle of the vehicles when they produce them, finding ways to recycle used cars when they have reached the end of its usable [...]

The One Place Smaller is Better

For the longest time we have been thinking about how to build a cost and resource efficient addition. The design inspiration we had came from two typical sources, This Old House and HGTV. Our idea was to build a completely separate building so we wouldn’t have to “touch” the existing structure. We could use share [...]

From the 70’s to the 2000’s

We live in a 1970’s designed home, built to incorporate the best building practices of its time including passive solar heating, 2” exterior foam insulation, and a small building footprint. Many things have changed since then in both our knowledge as well as in our lifestyles. And as a result, there are energy and resource [...]