Green Building Elements

How do you determine if a green project you are considering is worth it?  There are so many things to consider - the up front costs, savings over time, rebates and tax credits, and the savings to the environment.

A tool is available to help assess the financial costs and benefits of several green projects.  GreenandSave.com provides an ROI (return on investment) table that lists the added costs, annual savings, projected savings over 10 or 20 years, and the ROI for a given improvement.  Improvements include Tune-Ups (small projects or changes that can be made to green up a home or building), Remodeling, and Advanced (larger projects or decisions for a new building).

An example of a Tune-Up project is installing an Energy Star approved programmable thermostat.  The average cost is $115.00.  The projected annual savings is $180.00, yielding an ROI of 156.5% and a payback of 0.6 years.

One of the Remodeling projects is to replace windows with Energy Star Low-E windows.  According to the GreenandSave Remodeling Table: the payback time in years is 2.3, the added cost is $700.00, the annual savings is $300.00, ten year savings is $3,000.00, and the ROI is 42.9%.

Advanced projects include doubling the insulation factor (R-value) of the exterior walls from R-19 to R-30.  The added cost for this improvement is listed as $900.00, annual savings of $120.00, ROI of 13.3%, and a payback of 7.5 years.

While the costs and savings may vary according to the area of the country or world a project is located in, this tool certainly gives an owner some hard data to use to when making a decision on whether to pursue a project or not.  Some projects, such as adding a programmable thermostat, pay for themselves quickly, so they become almost “no-brainers.”  Others, like the added insulation example above, require more thought.  Tools like GreenandSave.com’s ROI table give owners the data they need to make an educated choice.

What does it look like to build a house with lots of green features? We see pictures of the finished buildings, and we read about the features that make them green. We know about the importance of good insulation and reducing electrical loads and choosing efficient equipment. But what does it look like while it all goes together? Read the rest of this entry »

I recently came across an online game called “Design Your Dream Home” on the Green Is Universal website. I was shocked by what I found and how bad the game really was. I prefer to focus on the positive aspects of green building, but this strikes me as so misguided that I could not let it pass unremarked.

Whoever designed this game has no understanding of real green building in any meaningful sense. Instead of providing any insight or education about green building, the game reduces design of a green house to nothing more than a couple of mouse clicks. “Choose the climate construction materials and energy sources and see how green you can be.” The oversimplification this presents is a huge disservice to visitors to the site who play the game. Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday, April 22 is Earth Day, and we thought that a couple special posts would be appropriate on this date.  Building has an enormous impact on the Earth, and green building offers the opportunity to lessen or eliminate many of those effects. Today, in a series of articles titled Elements of Building, we take a look at how Water, Energy and Materials each factor in to building operation and building design.

In addition to discussing green building, let us also take this opportunity to remind you of all the other Green Options blogs in the network and invite you to take a minute to look at some of the other writers and their Earth Day thoughts:
Read the rest of this entry »

Green Building Elements has a few more interesting and useful websites added to its blogroll for you to check out for more information about green building and design.  If you have come across a particularly useful or interesting site with a strong emphasis on green building and sustainable design, drop us a note about it at the address on our contacts and info page and let us know about it.

Here are some quick reviews of some sites you may want to take a look at, too.

Read the rest of this entry »

This local blog first came to my attention via an article in the local paper about a University of Michigan medical student and his daughter who are operating a blog together that is encouraging people to eat vegetarian meals one day a week (on Wednesdays). The Vegetarian Wednesday blog began just this past summer. Originally founded by Josh Mugele and his daughter Eleanor, there are now a few other writers (relatives and med school classmates) who contribute to the blog as well.

“Vegetarian Wednesday started when my daughter wanted to become a vegetarian but couldn’t do it all at once (she loves her chicken nuggets). I told her I’d help her by doing it with her, and we’d start by becoming vegetarians one day a week. Thus was born Vegetarian Wednesday. She wants to become a vegetarian because she loves animals. I want to do it because it’s good for me and good for the planet. Did you know that the meat industry is one of the leading contributors to global warming in the world? Did you know that eating less meat lowers your weight and total cholesterol? Think of what we could do if we all stopped eating meat for just one day a week.

“The purpose of this blog is to encourage meat-eaters like me to make a difference in their health and in the health of the planet by trying to eat no meat one day each week. On this blog we can share recipes, stories about Vegetarian Wednesdays, and most of all spread the word.”

The blog includes a number of recipes for a variety of vegetarian dishes, as well as some (very brief) reviews of vegetarian dishes by an actual 9-year-old (ranging from “No way,” for zucchini and mushroom enchiladas to “I love tofu. Tofu’s great,” for a simple General Tso’s Tofu recipe). Beyond the recipes there are also discussions of related topics connected to overall reduction of lifestyle impact to reviews of books and movies such as The Omnivore’s Dillemma and The 11th Hour. There are also discussions about restaurants (some local, some national chains) as they are connected to vegetarian eating.

Certainly this isn’t the first time anyone has considered partial vegetarianism, either as a step towards embracing vegetarian eating completely (as the daughter is doing), or just to push themselves to eat lower on the food chain and to eat a healthier diet (as the father is doing). My own family did something like this a couple years ago (though not so regularly or as organized as this is) when we had a share of vegetables each week from a local CSA farm (community-supported agriculture). Even when it is done in a haphazard fashion, you will most likely find yourself trying new things and increasing the variety of your meals. We’ve kind of let that idea slip lately, but perhaps this will be the inspiration for us to restart that ourselves.

Just taking a break from eating meat for one day a week reduces your consumption by about 15%. And Vegetarian Wednesday offers a list of other benefits to not eating meat:

• It fights global warming.
• You’ll get your daily vitamins at least one day a week.
• It makes you look better.
• It’ll make you feel better.
• It cuts back on the killing of animals.
• It reduces our reliance on foreign oil.
• Chicks (or dudes) will dig you.

If you are looking for a community to support you in a partially vegetarian lifestyle, this seems like it might be the place for you. It’s very much an experiment rather than a soapbox for these writers. It’s vegetarianism for the rest of us. Vegetarians who can also say, “But pork chops taste so good!”

Link: Vegetarian Wednesday

The World at Home: A Household Guide to Building was produced by the Citizens Environmental Coalition, a non-profit environmental advocacy group based in Albany, NY. This is something between a book review and a website review, because this book is actually a 100 page PDF that is free for download. It is filled with good information about greening your house, particularly for remodeling or new construction. While it is full of good information, it is not overwhelmingly detailed or complicated. It is a well-balanced guide that covers its material with sufficient detail, but at the same time without becoming overly technical.

The guide is timely and up to date. (This is actually a recently revised second edition of the guide. The first edition was produced in 2004.) In discussing various materials or approaches to construction, the guide is very comprehensive in trying to include as many things as possible. Both the positives and the negatives behind each choice are addressed, and while the information is not exhaustive, it is an excellent starting point.

“This guide is meant to enable you to compare building materials and make your own educated choices to affordably seek out safer, more sustainable products. It is also meant to help you evaluate the larger life cycle implications of all the products that you buy and use.”

A section on “Talking with your Designer and Contractor about Building Green” is one of a number of sections that is excerpted on the website as well. This section approaches the beginning of a project in much the same way that I would: by asking questions. This helps to direct in figuring out your particular green goals and determining what is most important for you in terms of Energy and Water, materials and Toxins, and Space Use, Appearance and Purpose. It also addresses the (unfortunately all-too-frequent) view of green building as an add-on or a commodity, rather than as a fundamental and integral part of any building project.

“Don’t start by asking yourself: “Do I want a green building?” This inadvertently suggests that you can treat sustainability as an add-on process. If sustainability is the real deal (and it is!) it needs to be a part of every project in some way and it should be as natural to all of us as breathing. The rest of the green building guide will give you a great starting place for talking more with professionals about your building choices.”

The book is divided into sections. A preliminary section talks about “What We’re Up Against” and lays out the issues surrounding a number of materials and chemicals found in construction and discusses them both in terms of the problems they can cause and the possible alternatives that can be used.

The main focus of the book though is construction. Here the sections address issues to be considered “Before You Build” including site issues and the size of the building, renewable energy options, the selection of building materials, and the aforementioned “Talking with your Designer and Contractor about Building Green.” “Time to Build” addresses green aspects of a range of building materials and helps with some guidance for making good green choices for material selections. Materials from the basement to the roof are presented along with information about the various options in each case. A small third section deals with “Building Outside” and covers outdoor decks and landscaping issues.

The book also contains a number of resources for finding suppliers, further information, and professional advice, but is specific to the state of New York in most instances. Though there is some regionalism in the guide, it is so full of good information that it is worthwhile no matter where you live.

If you aren’t inclined to read an entire book like this online, this is one instance where printing out an online document makes good sense. This is a manual that I am going to refer to again in the future. More importantly, I am going to recommend to clients and friends who are interested in building or expanding their homes that they read this book.

Some blogs start out from a small beginning premise and expand their scope and scale as they go on. Early posts on The Ramsay Home Project were just progress photos documenting the construction of a new home for a young, newlywed couple who wanted to build “an eco-friendly nest in the heart of Canada’s oil capital: Calgary, Alberta.”

But it appears that their interests grew, and as part of their investigation of greener living, the blog began to include articles about green news and topics of interest. It has grown to include links to a couple dozen other green websites and blogs (some of which are familiar, others may not be), and resources on elements of green construction.

The name of The Ramsay Home Project derives not from the family’s name, but instead from the name of the neighborhood the house is being built in. The house they are building is an Arts-and-Crafts style house built with insulated concrete forms (ICF) and using sustainable materials and building practices.

“While the project is still in its infancy, the vision is to build an environmentally responsible, small foot-print house that blends into Calgary’s historical neighbourhood of Ramsay, just outside the downtown core. The house will be primarily made of concrete and heated by the earth — with insulated-concrete-forms and super high-efficiency gas heating. The website is updated daily with content such as site reports, local resources, eco-friendly interiors, environmentally responsible suppliers and new green technology.”

In addition to collecting links about the products they are using, their site contains links to information about Alternate Energy, Local Non-Profit Organizations, and Smart Homes and more. Their blog includes a range of green topics. Recent stories they have featured have included green product information (”Home Depot promotes Eco Options”), green celebrity (”Brad Pitt starts eco-friendly building project”), general green news (”Gore Calls Canada Climate Plan a ‘Fraud’”), and more.

The home is still under construction (although they haven’t updated their pictures in a while). They haven’t documented the story of the project as fully as they might, though there are mentions in the discussion about their “new contractor” and their “old contractor.” And this entry is especially telling (it is also a good article to read for anyone who is going to be working with contractors).

The Ramsay Home Project provides another appealing source of green-oriented information with a decidedly personal perspective. Their scope is more limited and personal than some other sites, but in this case, I think it’s an advantage.