So what really is a "green house"? Someplace to grow tomatoes or flowers? Green is the color of money, which is what it takes a lot of to buy a house, so in essence, are all houses green? Green is referred to in the phrase "green with envy". (See the last comment.) Much of what I learned about house design was from my guru, Glenn Landvater. I have not seen him for quite some time, the last I heard from him he was living in Ocean City, Maryland. Anyway, he said that the last color he would make the exterior of a home, was green. After all, you have green grass, green trees, even green weeds all around the house, so if you make the house green, you lose the impact of what you designed.
Bottom line, green is the color of the living earth. So the new definition of "green houses" is that the less impact a house has on the environment, the "greener" it is. So green is a variable. Much of how green a house is, is controlled by how it is lived in. Naturally, if a house is designed to live green, it is much easier. Just think how green a house could be if it had no heat. That would be a problem for my wife, who likes to sleep in a warm bed, not in a cold, dark, dank, damp cave on a bear hide. So it is much better for today's civilization to design a house with an energy efficient heating system that both provides comfort for the owner, and is environmentally responsible. Another example of house design is insulation. Sure, you could simply add more. But the better method is to design the house to optimize the insulation. There are lots of construction techniques, most of them so simple you have to go "duh" when you finally figure them out. So there are lots of small things that need to be done to a house during construction that dramatically increase the energy efficiency of the house as an entire unit.
But back to the ongoing journey to green. As previously blogged, we believe in Energy Star as an energy efficient package for our homes to the extent that we now construct all of our homes to the Energy Star standard. I had also been paying attention to green building, what ever that means. There are a dozen + green building programs in place through out the country. Probably Denver had the first. These are local programs, designed and administered by local Home Builders Associations. And being the skeptic that I am, I found lots of excuses to not become informed. After all, it really has to add gazillions of dollars to the cost of a home, then no one that I know can afford it. After all, I grew up in PA, and although we are not cheep, we know a good deal when we see it. And we are even more quick to spot a rip off.
But as we all know, even political candidates, who are not allowed to change their stance of anything, change their attitude as they become educated. Well, I have been learning more about "green". And even my skepticism is disappearing. Even people in central PA are starting to talk about going green. Even value conscious builders like me.
But I needed something I could wrap my arms around, not pie-in-the sky idealistic platitudes. Voila!!!! I have been saved!!!! The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) rolled out a nation wide Green Building Certification program. And even a builder can understand it!!!! But really, I will need to spend tons of money to build a green house, right? So with my BS radar turned up 150%, I started reading, and reading, and reading. And I went to a NAHB seminar that described the program. But not in a lot of detail. So I am still on my own. Then I found it, the score card. The rating sheets that the program uses to rate how green a house is. So with healthy skepticism, I started on the first sheet. Then I noticed there are how many pages?? I do not want to spend a week on just rating a house. But I need to start, or I will never know. How many points do I need for the gold rating? 395? What's that mean? I guess I could settle for the silver or bronze rating, but what fun is that? That's right, I was told that an Energy Star home, just by meeting that standard, will give enough points to make the bronze level. So maybe we could do the silver level home. Without adding that gazillion dollar thing to the cost.
So I fought on. Thru the first page, thru the first section. How many more sections? 23 Pages in this section? I remembered how much I hate paper work. Then it took what seemed like 5 minutes for the program to save the page before going to the next. And I remembered how much I hate waiting. So I looked at each check off item with my own rating system in mind, "how much will it cost to meet that criteria? Is it something I am currently doing, that only needs documentation? Is there a cost effective way to accomplish that task? At the end when I add up the points, will it be worth increasing the construction cost of the house to get those additional points?" See what I was doing? I was trying to justify the point system. Which is attacking the symptom, not the root cause. The root cause is to make the house more environmentally friendly in design and construction, making it more environmentally friendly to live in. So the question became, "does meeting this specific substandard provide value to the home owners as they interact with the earth?"
I selected a home that we are just finishing up now at Cider Press Estates. (see www.wheatlandhomes.com/our-homes/for-sale/705-bencru-ave/ ) What would it have rated out as if we had actually planned on making it a "green house"?
Bottom line, green is the color of the living earth. So the new definition of "green houses" is that the less impact a house has on the environment, the "greener" it is. So green is a variable. Much of how green a house is, is controlled by how it is lived in. Naturally, if a house is designed to live green, it is much easier. Just think how green a house could be if it had no heat. That would be a problem for my wife, who likes to sleep in a warm bed, not in a cold, dark, dank, damp cave on a bear hide. So it is much better for today's civilization to design a house with an energy efficient heating system that both provides comfort for the owner, and is environmentally responsible. Another example of house design is insulation. Sure, you could simply add more. But the better method is to design the house to optimize the insulation. There are lots of construction techniques, most of them so simple you have to go "duh" when you finally figure them out. So there are lots of small things that need to be done to a house during construction that dramatically increase the energy efficiency of the house as an entire unit.
But back to the ongoing journey to green. As previously blogged, we believe in Energy Star as an energy efficient package for our homes to the extent that we now construct all of our homes to the Energy Star standard. I had also been paying attention to green building, what ever that means. There are a dozen + green building programs in place through out the country. Probably Denver had the first. These are local programs, designed and administered by local Home Builders Associations. And being the skeptic that I am, I found lots of excuses to not become informed. After all, it really has to add gazillions of dollars to the cost of a home, then no one that I know can afford it. After all, I grew up in PA, and although we are not cheep, we know a good deal when we see it. And we are even more quick to spot a rip off.
But as we all know, even political candidates, who are not allowed to change their stance of anything, change their attitude as they become educated. Well, I have been learning more about "green". And even my skepticism is disappearing. Even people in central PA are starting to talk about going green. Even value conscious builders like me.
But I needed something I could wrap my arms around, not pie-in-the sky idealistic platitudes. Voila!!!! I have been saved!!!! The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) rolled out a nation wide Green Building Certification program. And even a builder can understand it!!!! But really, I will need to spend tons of money to build a green house, right? So with my BS radar turned up 150%, I started reading, and reading, and reading. And I went to a NAHB seminar that described the program. But not in a lot of detail. So I am still on my own. Then I found it, the score card. The rating sheets that the program uses to rate how green a house is. So with healthy skepticism, I started on the first sheet. Then I noticed there are how many pages?? I do not want to spend a week on just rating a house. But I need to start, or I will never know. How many points do I need for the gold rating? 395? What's that mean? I guess I could settle for the silver or bronze rating, but what fun is that? That's right, I was told that an Energy Star home, just by meeting that standard, will give enough points to make the bronze level. So maybe we could do the silver level home. Without adding that gazillion dollar thing to the cost.
So I fought on. Thru the first page, thru the first section. How many more sections? 23 Pages in this section? I remembered how much I hate paper work. Then it took what seemed like 5 minutes for the program to save the page before going to the next. And I remembered how much I hate waiting. So I looked at each check off item with my own rating system in mind, "how much will it cost to meet that criteria? Is it something I am currently doing, that only needs documentation? Is there a cost effective way to accomplish that task? At the end when I add up the points, will it be worth increasing the construction cost of the house to get those additional points?" See what I was doing? I was trying to justify the point system. Which is attacking the symptom, not the root cause. The root cause is to make the house more environmentally friendly in design and construction, making it more environmentally friendly to live in. So the question became, "does meeting this specific substandard provide value to the home owners as they interact with the earth?"
I selected a home that we are just finishing up now at Cider Press Estates. (see www.wheatlandhomes.com/our-homes/for-sale/705-bencru-ave/ ) What would it have rated out as if we had actually planned on making it a "green house"?
Look for the answer tomorrow. Or the next day.
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