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19 comments on Green Buildings, Green Queens? Green LA?
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jmygann,
I built about 15 spec homes over the last 4 years, and have many friends in the business. At the end of the day, its all about profit. I am not building any more homes for anybody. Most people do not care about energy use or green building, just square footage and cost.
I am currently designing my personal Chesapeake Bayfront home now. Will be about 900 square feet, and it will be simple.
Building green is somewhat of a nebulous proposition. The article above talks about ICF construction, and there is nothing green about concrete. IMO, the best thing anyone can do is to design and build around the idea of minimal energy use.
I have been somewhat freaky about energy use for about 20 years, and learned alot. The most important thing is your/family personal habits. For example: I moved in with a women and her two teenage daughters. Average electricity use was about 2200Kwh per month. Now its about 800. This was accomplished by using the woodstove that was already installed, using an Energy Star window shaker for A/C, CFL's for general lighting, low flow shower heads, eliminating the use of the electric clothes dryer, not using the oven to cook a frozen pizza when its 90F outside, etc,etc,etc. Most people do not think.
As far as building goes, the most important lessons I have learned that impact energy use:
- Central A/C and heat is NOT as efficient as point of use.
- Energy Star appliances make a big difference.
- Proper building techniques. Control moisture.
- House orientation on the building lot and taking advantage of solar gain or keeping trees that block western sun exposure for warm climates.
- Use the best materials available that last, and install them correctly.
- For the green side, use natural materials instead of synthetics. (Wood siding, wood flooring, etc)
I could really go on for a hundred pages about this topic. The reality is that most people can build (or retrofit) a house that is enviromentally friendly and energy efficient for a small cost premium ,today. Energy is just way to cheap to force the mainstream to move in that direction.
Personal habits make a big difference, no matter how green or efficient a home is. Robert Rapier posted a nice article about his friends green house in the Colorado hills. He was using a gas fired clothes dryer in a desert climate!
I'm on the fence in regard to Concrete.
It gets overused, and built and then stripped out again, which is a huge carbon gain..
..but again, if you're looking for durable construction materials, it's possible to create elements of a structure with concrete that could serve for hundreds of years. Some Roman concrete is still secure today. (Properly designed, mixed, applied and maintained, of course) So with that potential for quality and length of service, I wonder if Concrete doesn't earn back its carbon costs..
I was on the 20th floor of a hi-rise condo under construction in Tribeca, gazing out the concrete slab and walls, steel studs and gypsum board. I realized that there was very little carbon in any of these materials and it occurred to me that perhaps it's time to take a look housing developments (one and two-story, not hi-rises) with respect to carbon.
Would it be appropriate to look at a development of stick-built houses as a collection of "carbon-sequestration units"? Is there an argument to be made that building out of wood sequesters a significant amount of carbon?
Using some data from DOE, a 2700SF house contains 13,800 board-feet (BF) of lumber (I suggest ignoring the question of whether a 2700SF house is green in and of itself for now). At 12BF per cubic foot, that's 1,150cu.ft. of wood. At 25lb/cu.ft. (a real rough estimate for oven-dried wood), that's 28,750lb or over 14 tons of wood. Assume 50% carbon content and you have 7 tons of carbon or the equivalent of 25 tons of CO2 in a house. I expect these values could change under some scrutiny.
It certainly wouldn't offset all the carbon emissions attributable to the house over its lifetime and my cursory analysis is ignoring a bunch of other inputs and outputs (such as where and how the wood was harvested and what occupied the land before the house was built). Has anyone done a formal study of whether stick-built construction has any positive attributes viz. carbon emissions or sequestration?
I am surprised at your observation.
The world cement industry is 5-10% of all CO2 emissions.
Similarly steelmaking is a CO2 heavy activity. And the steel probably comes from a long way away.
I haven't looked into whether a concrete and steel house is as CO2 intensive as a wooden one. Perhaps the gain (if there is one) is that a concrete and steel house should last a lot longer than a wood one.
*that said* they are tearing down concrete buildings put up here in the 60s (London). They cannot take the constant wet-and-drying-out cycle that our climate puts onto them. Whereas a brick building (the norm for housing construction) dries out-- the houses on my street are nearly 200 years old (but they are incredibly energy inefficient).