this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2026
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For me I admit not as much as I'd like.
I was unable to get solar panels for my house, due to the city's rulings. My house being a dome lacks a traditional roof for solar panels, and the city has a lot of strict rulings against solar panels not on roofs, mostly because the city council hates solar energy. Of course, I have small solar panels with power stations in the yard.
The house also is specifically one that is efficient for such purposes, and we practice dressing it up during the year. Currently we have blackout curtains over the windows that get hotter during the day-time barring the south-facing in my office, where I simply close that door. We also have curtains over hallways. While we have to use a rolling air conditioner due to the house's setup, we focus on only cooling the room that we are in or sleep in during the day-time, and during the night even if it is still 70s to 80s outside, we do what we can do to cool the rest of the house.
I have my own garden I grow vegetables and herbs in, as well as having an indoor garden in a south-facing window with a trellis shelf I built. I am able to grow plants year round. I pickle, dehydrate, and similar methods for everything I grow for the purposes of usage throughout the year, including using the brine from pickling for recipes. Also we make stuff during the night-time and put it to cool, making it able to be eaten several meals instead of every meal-time turning on a stove and cooking.
My spouse and I both have knowledge on repair, both around the house but also clothing, adding our own bits of charm when needed. I also have experience with repairing my bicycle as well as repairing my car, having been a mechanic in the past.
Can you solder? You could probably go that route if you don't mind losing your round(?) dome aesthetics. I've seen some adaptations where regular rails were put in place and then additional supports soldered into the structure to lift it up and fit into irregular areas
Soldering alone wouldn't work. The house is a monolithic dome, so it has over 20 inches of concrete for the outer most dome layer. I'd have to drill with masonry bolts and risk cracking the concrete of the house for it.
To add about the dressing house up or down,
During the last winter even when it was snowing and in the single-digits outside, we didn't have to turn on the heating for the house using the boiler. By dressing the house up, and ourselves dressing up a bit, the house was plenty warm and comfortable.