The “summer project” for Rod, me and Loren, EcoHomeResource is now live. The site is a hub of information and news for everyone wanting to build a green home or to make their current apartments more eco-friendly.

My dream has for quite some time (since reading Natural Capitalism and Cradle to Cradle, to be exact) been to build us a carbon-positive home, so the project has been spot-on for me.

The actual blog/CMS is using Movable Type but the backend database for products and companies is built on Merb and Datamapper. The integration of the platforms has definitely been a challenge but the decision to use separate pieces loosely joined by web services gives us a chance to reuse the database easily in the future if need be.

Playing around with new tools such as Merb, DM and jQuery (and, err… perl) has been really educational and fun. The project also gave us a chance to help hone open source products such as Datamapper even further.

If you’re building a new house, renovating your existing home, or just looking for tips to be more eco-efficient with what you already got, go and check out EcoHomeResource! You won’t walk out empty-handed.