Green Building Elements

Editor’s note: this piece has been contributed by guest blogger Kevin Hughes. Kevin was generous enough to share his own experience with installing a solar hot water system on his home. Thank you, Kevin!

I live in Los Angeles and I prefer the ugly one! Please don’t get me wrong, my wife is very beautiful, but when it comes to solar power, I prefer the ugly one.

Let me explain, for the past few years there has been huge interest in Solar Electricity (photovoltaic’s, PV, or solar panels), there are lots of incentives at both a state and federal level, there are often photo opportunities for politicians, gazing towards the future over a vast array or solar panels. But there are problems with this vision: solar electricity is expensive to purchase and install; it has a long pay back period; it converts sunlight to usable energy fairly inefficiently, and because of that, you need quite a lot of roof space or land to put up enough panels to power your home.

The ugly one that I prefer is solar thermal, specifically solar hot water, a much older technology. It is also much cheaper to install, much more efficient, and has a much faster pay back. It can even be a do-it-yourself project if you are reasonably handy. As for the payback, that’s easy: you don’t have to pay for 70-100% of your hot water heating costs, and with a clever tweak, you can save 10-15,000 gallons of water annually, and reduce your water and electricity costs.

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If you can’t tell, we’re pretty hooked on the latest and greatest in green prefab design. One big problem, though, is that there’s a huge amount of noise and not all that much action - plenty of fabulous prefab designs and museum / conference exhibits, but very few actual installations (and even fewer mid-market installs, which is where prefab has to go in order to make a true difference in our housing stock).

Finally, the log jam seems to be breaking. Several firms have begun to produce green prefab homes for real people in small but growing numbers. This past month, Marmol Radziner, a prefab company here in Southern California, made a splash with some pretty showy installation videos on local media outlets. These homes are either a) high end or b) for the firm’s founders, so they’re still a ways away from mass-market. But, the videos do a good job of showing what elements make prefab homes unique (factory construction, rapid installation, modular components) and at least to me suggest that they’re not all that far away from being able to replicate these installations on a larger and thus less expensive scale.

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Let’s get right into it. As we walked into the immense PCBC exhibit halls both GE and Whirlpool proudly exhibited some of their Green appliances. Granted Whirlpool displayed what we would consider a green kitchen but Whirlpool only offers about 30 percent of Energy Star and other Green appliances. The percentage for GE remains even lower. We won’t even discuss GE’s overall environmental philosophy.

Being in the major appliance state of mind, we strolled over to Liebherr, makers of refrigerators and the first appliance company to remove CFC’s completely from the production process back in 1993. It’s no surprise to us that ALL of their models meet the Energy Star qualification, and their BioFresh compartments certainly add green value by preserving fruits and veggies (and the nutritional value) longer than normal fridges. The company also marked the first refrigeration company to comply with RoHS and also recovers and utilizes the energy released during production to heat the manufacturing environments. Yes, the company is based in Germany so hopefully US manufactures will chill with this philosophy.

Also on the old school route, Maze Nails only recently started promoting their “greeness” but they have been making nails with 96 percent recycled content (62% post consumer, 34% pre) for 160 years. Nails aren’t the most glamorous aspect of green building but we know that these guys hit the nail on the head.

We saved the best (or most outrageous) for last. Tucked away in the corner of PCBC we strolled past Green Mountain Soapstone and we probably would have kept right on strolling if not for placard sitting on their soapstone counter which proclaimed “Voted #1 Green Product 2008 New England Home Show”. We didn’t attend that show but if this product claimed the #1 prize then we would hate to see the #5 prize. First of all, this soapstone comes from the ground and last time we checked, the earth wasn’t producing more soapstone. Second, they mine it in Brazil (claiming they use fair labor practices) which isn’t exactly light on the carbon footprint scale. Need we continue? They claim it’s chemical free to manufacture and items such as Icestone aren’t (they should check that IceStone has Cradle to Cradle certification) but don’t insult us but claiming this soapstone to be a green product.

Excuse us while we polish our green granite counter tops.

A new study finds that awnings over windows in residential buildings can reduce energy use.

A new study, “Awnings in Residential Buildings: The Impact on Energy Use and Peak Demand,” conducted by the Center for Sustainable Building Research at the University of Minnesota, has found that awnings over windows on residences can save energy costs and reduce energy use throughout the year by reducing the effects of unwanted passive solar heating.

The study was funded by the Professional Awning Manufacturers Association (PAMA), and was conducted to determine whether awnings are viable means to reduce energy use and reduce air conditioner usage in residential buildings and homes. The study investigated the energy savings for single-family homes in terms of heat gain, energy costs in heating and cooling and the reduction of energy use during peak periods.
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A community in Canada has an unusual form of solar power that can provide over 90% of the annual heating and hot water needs for the homes, despite being situated in a cold Alberta location where winter temperatures can reach -33 degrees C (-27 F).

The Drake Landing Solar Community collects solar energy in a heat storage fluid through an array of solar panels on the roof of each home and covering all of the garages at the back of each home. The heated fluid is transferred to a neighborhood energy center, and then into the ground beneath an insulated layer, where the heat is stored in the earth.

Combined together, the 52 home community is able to collect and store enough energy from the sun during the summer that the ground storage temperatures reach 80 degrees C (176 F). This heat is sufficiently insulated beneath the ground that it can be drawn from throughout the winter to provide heat and hot water.
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As we walked into the mammoth PCBC (Pacific Coast Builder Conference) at the Moscone Center in San Francisco we couldn’t help but notice the hanging banners with the words - Power. Forward. Sustain. Of course we could see Power and Forward, as we wouldn’t expect Weakness and Backward but then - Sustain. That omnipresent word like Green that has seeped into the mindset of builders and developers. Or has it? Is it part of the green spin or are things starting to move forward in a powerfully sustainable direction? We decided that “both” loomed as the right answer. For this installment, we decided to cover some of the unexpected and the questionable lower profile “green” products. Sorry about the ” ” around the green but you’ll see where we go with this idea.

We totally got buzzed about something so innocuous that we almost walked passed it because it didn’t have a bunch of Green banners proclaiming its greenness. This Verve living system offers what they called a living control system which in simple terms operates like a whole house lighting system. We’ve seen these before but this one operates on battery free, self sustaining technology or what they call energy harvesting radio frequency technology. Pretty scientific for us but the little gizmo works in a panel that reduces the power so that certain switches can come on at certain levels and times. The systems extends bulb life and new homes don’t need copper wiring installed if they use this system. We even like the parent control which operates like the driver’s control when it comes to locking and unlocking car doors. We’re locked for this system.

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A few weeks ago I offered my thoughts on green kitchens on a budget.  Today, I want to focus on making your new kitchen as green as possible, without regard for cost.  Remember, often the greenest options is to keep your current kitchen; many choose to repaint their cabinets with non-VOC paint or to tackle DIY cabinet projects.  This article is for those building a whole new kitchen or are remodeling from the ground up.  It’s up to you to determine the balance between what is the most green and what is the most practical for your project.

The three categories that determine a product’s green-ness are health, sustainability, and energy.  Health takes into account the product’s offgassing of VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, especially urea-formaldehyde.  In order to even consider something as green, it must contain very low to no VOCs.  Sustainability looks at the life cycle of the materials used not just in the final product but in the manufacturing process as well.  Products that are made from recycled materials or renewable resources fall into this category, as well as products whose manufacturing process embraces sustainability.  Energy includes the water and energy usage of products such as plumbing fixtures and appliances, as well as the product’s embodied energy, which takes into account the energy used to produce and deliver the product. Read the rest of this entry »

For three days this week, St. Louis was host to the US Green Building Council’s Greening the Heartland conference.  Focusing on green building and sustainability, this year’s conference theme was “Embracing Change ‘08.”  It featured a strong lineup of speakers and educational programs, workshops, a bike tour of sustainable buildings, a tour of the LEED gold certified St. Louis Community College Wildwood campus, a tour of the LEED platinum certified Alberici headquarters, and a hall for exhibitors.  Educational programs were grouped into government, corporate, green communities, and education tracks.

Though I was mainly interested in kitchen and bath products like IceStone, PaperStone, and Vetrazzo countertops and Koch & Co. cabinets, I found myself sitting down with exhibitors who had something new and interesting to present, like the guys from Huntleigh McGehee, who specialize in Green Insurance, which I plan to write more about next week.  Other exhibitors showed off windmill technology, natural insulation, SIPs panels, sustainable printing, green design/architecture firms, solar shades, green roofs, and much more. Read the rest of this entry »

Author’s note: the following article on home heating is the final one in an eight-part series. If you are thinking about installing a wood-burning mass heater, this article should help you.

Operating a Mass Heater
Mass heaters are a different approach to burning wood. If you don’t don’t understand this, you won’t just be disappointed — you’ll fill your house with smoke or, worse, poison your family in their sleep! Getting proper performance from a mass heater requires a little planning, and some involvement, on your part.  The tradeoff for this extra effort is safety and tremendous energy efficiency.

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Editor’s note: You might expect a post about an event called NEOCON to appear on Red, Green & Blue, but, as our friends at GreenBuildingTalk point out, NEOCON is a trade show for interior furnishings (with no particular ideological leanings, we’re guessing). The show took place in GBT’s hometown of Chicago, so they got a first-hand look at NEOCON’s green offerings. This post was originally published on Tuesday, June 17, 2008.

The National Exposition of Contract Interior Furnishings (NEOCON) was held this past week in Chicago, and GreenBuildingTalk was there to check out the unique combination of over 1,200 residential and commercial showrooms and exhibits. With our goal of discovering new green products, Josh and I made our way through the maze of office furniture, flooring, wallcoverings, and hundreds of chairs.

Amidst the legions of chairs, our first discovery was RealForm Technology’s plant-based polyurethane foams, products used for seating applications. The polyurethane foams contain 20% bio-based content, and the company’s laboratory trials have achieved even higher Bio-Polyol substitution, foams capable of being molded for any type of furniture, including sofas. RealForm’s Realbio foam product is leading the way in eco-friendly furniture foam, and is one to keep an eye on.

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