Ha! I looked this one up on
Snopes.com and it's true!
*Subject:* The Story of two houses
Subject: "The Story 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.
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 an
arid, 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.
two houses
