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Right now the general building industry is seeing a lot of red, not green. With the housing markets in free fall, homeowners finding out that their mortgage debt exceeds the value of their house and with the foreclosure crisis continuing to grow it doesn’t look good. But even with all this bad news there is one bright spot in the building world, green homes. A recent survey by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), new home buyers would spend almost an additional $9,000 on a home with effective energy efficient features. Another consumer study that indicated that 85% of recent home buyers would choose one home over another because of energy efficiency features. The study also reported that buyers are willing to pay an average of $19,000 more for a green home.

Recently the NAHB marked the 10th anniversary of its National Green Building Conference before a record crowd of more than 1,200 attendees. At the meeting some of the pioneering green builders reflected on how they have gone from being “the people no one wanted to sit next to” to being “the most popular guys in the room.”

Given these signs it looks like more builders will be focusing on building “greener” new homes which should help everyone.

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I recently came across a article about something I had never heard about before, green burials. The idea is amazingly simple, saves cost and is the environmentally responsible thing to do.

The basics are pretty straight forward, there is no embalming fluid used in the body, a biodegradable casket is used and there is no concrete vault used. This takes us back to the way burials were preformed prior to the Civil War, kind of the way nature intended. It’s sort of the ultimate form of recycling.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution had the original article that sparked my interest, you can read it here - AJC Green Burial.

There are a couple of reference sites that are worth a look.

Greenburials.org

Greenburialcouncil.org

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If you are looking at doing some remodeling and want to incorporate green principals and practices you might have some problems with a run of the mill remodeling contractor. One way to help ensure that your contractor is familiar with green remodeling is to see if he or she is certified by the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) as a Green Certified Professional (GCP). According to the NARI, to be qualified as a GCP the remodeling contractor must meet all of the following requirements:

• Be employed by or own a firm engaged in conducting green remodeling projects
• Adhere to NARI’s Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics
• Have a minimum of five years continuous full time experience in the remodeling industry
• Completed 16 hours of continuing education
• Successfully completed a comprehensive application that details their background and experience
• Successfully complete a one-day written examination on building science, indoor air quality, resource conservation, renewable energy, and 12 trade related areas of green program application

Does this guarantee that they will be the perfect green contractor, no, but it certainly is a check on the positive side for the contractor.

For more information check out the NARI site.

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The AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) created their annual top ten list of green projects. The information about the projects is contained on the AIA site.

The projects are pretty neat but somewhat disconnected, on the surface, from green homebuilding. If you dig a bit deeper you can find some things that do directly apply to homebuilding, the measurements they use to rate the various projects used to create the top ten list. These measures can help you on the journey to a greener home.

The high-level list follows:

1: Sustainable Design Intent & Innovation

2: Regional/Community Design & Connectivity

3: Land Use & Site Ecology

4: Bioclimatic Design

5: Light & Air

6: Water Cycle

7: Energy Flows & Energy Future

8: Materials & Construction

9: Long Life, Loose Fit

10: Collective Wisdom & Feedback Loops

The detailed information for each from the AIA site is below:

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The National Association of Home Builders has a great publication available to the public for free. It is the Model Green Home Building Guidelines. While the primary audience is home builders it is also a valuable read for the average consumer. There is also a checklist available that is kind of the “Cliff Notes” version of the guidelines.

The Guidelines are a good way to get a quick overview of the key areas involved in green building practices. There are 6 main areas that the guidelines cover; Lot Preparation and Design, Resource Efficiency, Energy Efficiency, Water Efficiency / Conservation, Occupancy Comfort and Indoor Environmental Quality, Operation, Maintenance and Education.

In summary, the Guidelines can give you a jump start on understanding the key parts of green design and the associated construction processes. Best of all – it’s free.

NAHB Model Green Home Building Guidelines

Green roofs can take multiple forms, the one we will be talking about for this article are defined as: a building roof that is partially or completely covered with vegetation. While this type of roof isn’t used much in residential construction it is most popular in commercial construction (flat roofs are most adaptable to green roof practices). The idea and implementation of green roofs has increased greatly over the past few years. In 2007 green roof implementations in North America grew by 30% according to the “Green Roofs For Healthy Cities” organization. Among the benefits of green roofs are more cleaner air and carbon dioxide elimination, reduced energy consumption for the building and a cooler cityscape, less stormwater runoff, and more green spaces for people and animals.

A green roof is composed of multiple layers or components. The base is often some type of waterproof membrane. There also may be root barrier and drainage and irrigation systems. This is then covered by soil or some other type of custom growing medium. A flat roof is the easiest roof style for the implementation of green roofs.

There are a number of great websites out there that will provide you with more information on green roofs. They include:

Greenroofs.com

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities

Green Roof Project (residential)                                   

Now go get green.

The EPA’s recently issued their Lead: Renovation, Repair and Painting rule which will take effect in April 2010. The main impact of the rule is that remodeling activities that occur in houses built before 1978 that have pregnant women or children less than 6 years old will have to follow a strict set of requirements. They mainly include keeping dust to a minimum and cleaning up thoroughly after the work. Contractors will also need to take a training course to obtain the required certification. For details you can check the EPA site. You can also get educational pamphlets by calling the EPA’s National Lead Information Center at 800-424-LEAD (5323).

After the item yesterday about the rising price of food and the potential for shortages this site popped to mind.  This isn’t really a “green” related site but the principle and result is great.  FreeRice.com was created in late 2007 by John Breen, a computer programmer from Bloomington Indiana to help his son study for the SAT.  The site is a online word game where the player is presented with a word and four possible definitions, if they pick the correct definition FreeRice.com donates 20 grains of rice the United Nations World Food Program.  The rice (actually, the money for it) is provided by sponsors who advertise on the site.  The site generates enough traffic that enough rice is donated each day to feed over 7,000 people.  As of early April over 25 billion grains of rice had been donated!

It’s fun, a great way for kids (and adults) to improve their vocabulary and help a very worthwhile cause - reducing world hunger.  Go give it a shot.

It has been offered up that biofuels like ethanol will help create jobs and reduce the overall problem of global warming. While this may be true it could come at a cost greater then the help it offers.

A number of countries have jumped on the biofuels bandwagon in the past few years. The US Congress is developing a proposal that would grow biofuel production to 36 billion gallons by 2022 from the current 2012 mandate of 7.5 billion gallons. The European leaders are requiring that a minimum of 10% of fuels will have to come from biofuels by the year 2020. The trend is obvious.

This past Tuesday the United Nations released a major report on bioenergy. Among the positive statements about the benefits of biofuels there were also alarms raised about the negative impacts of biofuels. The report said “Unless new policies are enacted to protect threatened lands, secure socially acceptable land use, and steer bioenergy development in a sustainable direction overall, the environmental and social damage could in some cases outweigh the benefits,”

It also says that bioenergy represents an “extraordinary opportunity” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it warned that “rapid growth in liquid biofuel production will make substantial demands on the world’s land and water resources at a time when demand for both food and forest products is also rising rapidly.”

Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations’ World Food Program, said on the agency’s Web site Tuesday that the rising prices are “threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger,”

In addition to the UN report there was also an excellent paper written by the National Center for Public Policy Research titled “Thanks to Congress, Ethanol and Biofuel Mandates Cause Food Prices to Soar”. In the paper the author, Dana Joel Gattuso, writes that the redirection of food crops to biofuels is causing food prices to soar. It also stated that this is “drawing us into an ugly “food-versus-fuel” battle: “Any diversion of land from food or feed production to production of energy biomass will influence food prices from the start, as both compete for the same inputs.”

Does it come down to a fight between clean “renewable” fuel versus food? Do we lose either way? Let us know what you think.

The full UN report is available at esa.un.org/un-energy/pdf/susdev.Biofuels.FAO.pdf

The National Center for Public Policy Research paper is available at http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA564.html

April 22 is Earth Day (depending on which Earth Day you observe!).  I’m sure you have seen a number of news items about Earth Day and they go all across the board.  While I tend to question some of the articles due to their heavy doses of “green washing”, the overall trend is a good one.  Any time that we can get people to think about how to better the environment and reduce our consumption of resources it’s a good thing.  So please take some time out to talk to your friends and neighbors about green issues and see if you can help spread the work.

Have a Happy Earth Day!

There is a very intriguing article in this week’s issue of Time magazine. The article by Michael Grunwald has a tagline of “Politicians and Big Business are pushing biofuels like corn-based ethanol as alternatives to oil. All they’re really doing is driving up food prices and making global warming worse – and you’re paying for it. Mr. Grunwald makes the argument that while ethanol is being hyped as the eco-friendly answer to our energy problems it really is increasing global warming, destroying forests and pushing food prices up.

Give it a read at Time and let us know what you think.

Oh no, not another list!  Yes it is, anytime we can provide ways to save money and energy it is worth talking about.  This was a quick little read in the online version of This Old House Magazine.  It covers everything from plugging your chimney to selling your house (?).  Give it a read and see if you can find some savings.

It’s at This Old House.

When people think of building green they tend to associate it with extra cost, that doesn’t have to be the case. There are a number of green building techniques that can actually save money.

#1 – Build Small

One of the easiest and most cost effective approaches is to just build a smaller house. Smaller houses require fewer resources to construct and less energy to heat and cool. Often buyers build smaller but use higher quality finish materials.

#2 – The Sun

Orient the building to get the most natural daylight which will reduce the use of electric lights. It also tends to make the house feel more pleasant. You can also take advantage of solar energy to help heat the house. With careful placement and design of the house on the site you can reduce both the heating and cooling bills.

#3 – Roof Color

Depending on your climate zone using either a light colored roof to reflect heat or a dark colored one to absorb heat can help with the predominate temperature extremes.

#4 - Whole-House Fans

The fan will improve indoor comfort by drawing in cooler outside air in the evening and helping to exhaust the hot indoor air. The fans on average uses one-tenth the electricity of an air conditioner.

#5 - Water-Efficient Toilets And Fixtures

Using low flow toilets, faucet flow reducing aerators and low flow showerheads can reduce your annual water usage by over 40% compared to the old style fixtures.

The U.S. Green Building Council and the American Society of Interior Designers Foundation have partnered to create the nation’s first green residential remodeling guidelines. The guidelines cover the 10 areas most often updated in a remodel. They are: Kitchen, Bathroom, Bedroom, Living & Working, Finished Basement, Home Performance, Major Addition, Gut Rehab, Deep Energy Retrofit, and Outdoor Living.

The Guidelines are designed to provide people with the information and tools to green their home remodeling projects. With the continued increases in the cost of energy more and more people will be looking for information on how to save energy.

For more information please check out the REGREEN site.

It appears that the worlds leading retailer, that is viewed as part of the evil empire by many, is getting greener. One of Wal-Mart’s newest stores, the Las Vegas Supercenter, will open this week using a new cooling technology to cut overall energy use by up to 45 percent compared to stores build in 2005. The areas where they are reducing their impact on the environment are in areas of lighting, refrigeration, water flow and now a new cooling system based on water evaporation for total energy savings of between 35 percent and 45 percent.

The design is tuned for use in the dry western states where evaporation works better than in the humid southern states. The system consists of water evaporation chillers installed on the store roof that chills fluid that is then circulated under the floor of the store. Basically the same design as a radiant heating system just used for cooling instead.

Since Wal-Mart is stated to be the largest private user of electricity in the world any savings they can implement in their stores can have a major impact. In addition Wal-Mart shares their environmental best practices with other retailers to help them improve their energy efficiency.

It’s certainly a step in the right direction.

If you have ever been in a grocery store, I’m sure you have heard the question, “Paper or plastic?” Which one is the right choice? Well the short answer is neither! A better choice is a reusable bag. But that is not always possible or practical so if you have to choose, it appears that most evaluations prefer plastic over paper. To that end, there was a very good overview of the “bag war” on the MSNBC website today.  There covered, pretty fairly, both sides of the issue - paper or plastic. 

It’s worth a look, but remember – a reusable bag is the best choice!

There is a new website set to launch on March 17, PlanetReuse.com. Planet Reuse is a website that connects buyers and seller of reused and reclaimed construction materials and equipment. Kind of a eBay for recycling and reuse.
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Last week six homes were set on fire with three of them being destroyed in a new neighborhood in Woodinville Washington by what appears to be the Earth Liberation Front group. A sign with their initials was found at the scene, an official said. The 5-foot by 5-foot sign found at the scene read “Built Green? Nope BLACK! McMansions + RCD’s r not green. ELF” RCD means rural cluster development. The homes that were burned used “Built Green” standards such as water-pervious sidewalks, super-insulated walls and windows and products made with recycled materials, such as carpet pads.

The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) group, is a loosely organized collection of radical environmentalists that authorities say is responsible for other arsons in the Northwest.

ELF has been implicated in a string of arsons that investigators say were perpetrated from the mid-1990s to 2001. This included the Center for Urban Horticulture that was destroyed because the ELF activists mistakenly believed researchers there were genetically engineering trees.

To me, this is a gigantic perversion of environmentalism and the green movement. There were explosive devices found inside the four homes that were burned, presumably put there to injure any firefighters trying to battle the blazes. Kind of strange given that part of The ELF’s guidelines require that individuals or groups acting on its behalf “take all necessary precautions against harming any animal — human and nonhuman”^, it sure doesn’t sound like that to me.

Basically, their approach appears to be, destroy items that have already consumed resources and then release large amounts of pollutants into the environment all while endangering lives. Not really my idea of a green organization or even one I want associated with the word green.

Let us know what you think!

It’s a brilliant idea, go dark to save the earth. Earth Hour was conceived as a simple but effective way to help with global warming. Earth Hour uses the simple act of turning off your lights for one hour to make a impact and show the need for action on global warming.

Earth Hour has gotten the attention of people all across the globe. The message is that individuals can make a difference with global warming. Earth Hour and the World Wildlife Fund want to raise awareness about the connection between power usage and climate change.

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Global warming is “the greatest scam in history”! You may remember when John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel, made that comment a few months ago. Well, this week he was speaking at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change.

Coleman’s strategy for exposing what he calls “the fraud of global warming” is to sue those who sell carbon credits. This includes the firm, Generation Investment Management, that Al Gore helped found.  Coleman points out that this would make them prove in court the impacts and effects of carbon on global warming

Coleman said. “as the experts went to the witness stand and testified, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”

Coleman also claims that the Weather Channel is now a proponent of the global warming alarmism. In late 2006, The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen wrote in her blog that weathercasters that believe global warming can be explained by cyclical weather patterns and not human activity should be de-certification by the American Meteorological Society.

Let us hear what you think about this one!