Pick your apocalypse, peak oil, and death of the dollar, the dreaded end of the Mayan calendar. We’ll all be partying like it’s December 21, 2012 if we convert our old fashioned on grid houses into new school people powered homes.

In the wake of British Petroleum poisoning the Gulf of Mexico, The Human Powered Home makes a lot of sense. No longer do we need to wear the yoke of petrochemicals when we have all the power we need in our legs. 

Maybe not all the power we need, but a least some of the power we need.

This book is chalked full of ideas on how to create human powered generators, from pedal power to treadle power and all modes in between.  Part of the book shows the reader hot to make their own people powered machine.  In addition, it shows different human powered devices worldwide and their applications.  Such as water pumps for wells and grain grinding machines in third world countries.

The Human Powered Home shows the development of historical people powered machines that helped fuel world progress for centuries.

One can easily find the wisdom in this book useful by looking back on Hurricane Ike, when half of the midwest was without power for several days, to weeks in some cases.  It is easy to see how fragile our world is, simple by pulling the plug and taking our power away, the midwest went straight back to the 1880’s except no one knows hot to handle themselves anymore.  After the novelty wore off during the first night without TV, hot water and the lack of refrigeration, everyone began to look for ways to keep their food from going bad and to entertain themselves.

‘The Human Powered Home, choosing muscles over motors,’ offers some solutions to the world’s energy questions.  The book is easy to read, although some of the projects require some degree of handiness.  This book is very interesting and very cool for mad scientist cyclist types.  We all know at least one.