ARE YOU ANSI?

ANSI - To be edgy, nervous, undecided. Is that you? Uncertain about your future? Feeling anxious about your present situation? Need to get an hour with your shrink. Or two. Oh, wait a minute, that is being "antsy". OK, let's try again, ANSI - to be attacked by a group of those little black things that come into your house thru the foundation, that you need an exterminator to get rid of. And all the exterminators are 3 days out. Now you are really antsy.

Really, ANSI, the American National Standards Institute is the gold standard for coordination of standardized testing and rating systems throughout the United States. Founded in 1918 by five engineering societies and three government agencies, the Institute promotes and facilitates consensus standards and conformity of assessment systems. The ANSI approval process requires that materially affected and interested parties all buy into the standards, that the proposed standards go thru a public review process, and that all these comments be addressed in good faith. To this end, we now have an ANSI approved Green rating standard. What is the importance of having this standard? Real simply, we can get past the discussion of what make a house green, to "how green do we want it?" And now we can judge the "greenness" of a project with consistency. In other words, we have a rating system that will be recognized through out the 50 States.

The other news is that the approved ANSI green standards are basically the same rating system we have been using. So the management and coordination we did at the Penn Valley Silver rated green house will remain virtually the same for future projects.

How energy efficint do you want your home to be? How healthy would you like your interior air? How much water do you want to save? How GREEN do you want your home to be?