Whereas my home isn’t lined in mirrors, I did get an eerie feeling of déjà vu as I watched the primary few episodes of The Curse. The Curse is a present so layered with squirm-inducing interpersonal and marital strife, the borderline mortifying need to be seen, awkward interactions, white guilt, and extra that it’s exhausting to not see oneself in not less than a part of the story because it unfolds. However as somebody who simply completed constructing a close to net-zero house, the story nearly feels suffocating to me, very similar to dwelling in a thermos.
The home that my accomplice and I constructed will not be a passive home, nevertheless it does share lots of the identical options as Whitney’s Española creations. I don’t have a jail sink/bathroom combo, however I do have an ERV, electrical home equipment, and insanely thick, additional insulated partitions. In contrast to Whitney and her quest for a Joanna Gaines-like dominance over the Española group, we weren’t centered on optics once we designed our house. As a substitute, we simply needed to do what we may to attenuate our ecological footprint whereas we had the prospect. Our house isn’t eligible for any fancy awards or certifications — see: fuel hearth, additionally: generator — and we by no means cared about that. We simply made selections that had been proper for us … and that helped us benefit from all of the tax rebates.
Whitney, in all her controlling glory, appears to be constructing homes which are extra of an train in focusing her ideologies on others as an alternative of making energy-efficient houses which are welcoming and cozy to potential consumers. They’re excessive in each sense of the phrase. The primary potential consumers in episode 5, titled “It’s A Good Day,” appear to acknowledge that after they ask about putting in an AC unit to assist address the sweltering warmth. The home I stay in has one thing known as a warmth pump, an equipment which runs completely on electrical energy and magic. (I’m a author, not a scientist.) The purpose is, Whitney may have simply outfitted her houses with creature comforts for potential consumers and nonetheless maintained her eco-friendly targets. Constructing a passive, mirrored home is completely cool if that’s what you personally love, however constructing ten of them after which throwing a tantrum when keen consumers don’t seem is one thing else completely.
In a earlier episode, Whitney is incensed when Vic, the client from the pilot episode of Flipanthrophy, tells her that he’s ditched his fancy induction vary in alternate for a fuel vary. That is wild on many ranges — that man is gonna want some type of venting system to take care of the possibly noxious fumes that don’t dissipate within the thermos-like environment of his new house — however Whitney is apoplectic. The fuel range signifies that the unit doesn’t qualify as a passive home anymore, and her desires are being dashed by the very folks she’s ostensibly attempting to assist.
There’s one man who loves the home: Mark Rose, performed by an lively, charismatic, and always-welcome Dean Cain. Whitney doesn’t love the man— he has a Blue Lives Matter flag on his truck — however Mark appears to totally perceive what he’s entering into, and likes the home as an off-the-grid possibility. He mentions thermal bridging, which reveals that he’s finished his homework. Lengthy story brief, thermal bridging is a matter with supplies that move straight by way of the development of a house from the outside to the indoors, particularly supplies that simply conduct warmth or chilly like glass or metallic. One answer right here is so as to add insulation. One other is to put in double and even triple-pane home windows within the house to supply a buffer to entice the air earlier than it may well infiltrate your property. Or, within the peculiar case of Whitney and Asher’s houses, to perhaps not even have home windows? Are there home windows? I don’t bear in mind seeing any? A house with few (or no?!) home windows provides most privateness however minimal publicity to mild. It’s beginning to really feel like these homes actually are prisons…
Or are they thermoses? Thermos prisons? That every one feels like torture. When Whitney encounters the chicken, she’s ready for a blow take a look at at her and Asher’s latest construct. A blow take a look at is a non-invasive take a look at that determines how a lot air is escaping a home. It’s fully protected to be inside in the course of the take a look at, so it’s a testomony to simply how additional Whitney is that she’s determined to step exterior whereas it’s being performed. Homes which are constructed to be hermetic want a further system known as an HRV (Warmth Restoration Ventilator) or ERV (Vitality Restoration Ventilator) to assist flow into recent air inside the home, offering air flow with out destabilizing the temperature contained in the dwelling.
