Copper is key to making dumb homes smarter

Homeowners are offered such options as accessing the Internet from kitchen appliances, bedside panels, even the bathroom.

Security cameras can be turned on even if you are overseas; energy consumption can be monitored and adjusted automatically.That’s just for starters.

Carry the portable television into the kitchen to watch over dinner? How 20th Century.

Why not just turn on the refrigerator door, or the kitchen wall for that matter?Appliance makers are trial-testing Internet-based refrigerators and ovens with promising results and may eventually move on to microwaves, washing machines and other household goods.

A new breed of architects and home builders regard most conventionally built houses as dumb and gluttons for energy.

“Interior reform†is the latest catch-phrase, and experts say it won’t happen without copper.

Smelted as early as 3,500 BC, copper is about as far from a new age material as you can get. Or is it? The first thing many miners working in Bingham Canyon, Utah, did when they bought their homes from the Kennecott Copper company was rip down the copper roofing, replace it with brick or shingles and sell the metal as scrap.