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Get Down
to Green Essentials Early
You have
already established your budget and priorities (Chapter 2) and looked at
your land conditions (Chapter 5) as well as some initial site related
Green thinking. So you should be about ready to start
laying out your house. Right? Wrong! Wrong that is if you are
serious about doing 'good' design.
The first waylay of your journey is the color Green
again. If one of your Chapter 2 priorities is to do a Green home it is important to establish the meets and bounds of your
‘Greening’ now before you go on. Going Green will be more expensive than the normal off the shelf builder’s
house. And as said there is no bigger culprit of
redesign than coming in over budget. Remember, it is one thing to
redesign because somewhere toward the end you see something that works better. It is another
to have the design worked out to your perfection and then start
over again because there is no way to make the house 25% smaller.It
is therefore to everyone's great benefit to know the general size of
the house before you begin design and there is no way to do that without a
realistic budget.
So, get the green worked out now
and know the added cost if any as completely as possible. This is not
that hard to do, but it will take some time. First, list the things you
want Green in order of priority. Make columns, 2 of which
are for the unit costs of the normal item and the Green version. Add other
columns such as I show below. Your objective is to see how much
more your Green items are going to cost and how much over your
budget you may or may not be. You should be using your budgeting knowledge
from Chapter 2 to derive a couple of the columns. You may need some
help getting good numbers for the unit costs. Your lumber yard can
help as well as some trusted builders in the area. For the Solar and
other HVAC equipment take a look at the
Product Reviews.
In particular
Go Green Solar
can provide the cost of most green equipment
and the book
can help you determine much more. Remember effort spent now will be
repaid by not having to redesign at the last minute.
Here is an example of the
Green Cost List I would do according to my priorities. I
am not filling in all the numbers because mine would just mislead you.
Costs change all the time and you must do this work yourself as close to
building time as possible. The numbers the author gives are provided merely for
illustration and were ‘picked’ out of the air. Our book takes you through
this process in a step by step manner.
Before leaving this topic below are items that
might help you prioritize your Green list and put the list in some
perspective.
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I like
to divide Green items into static and active energy
related and rate their importance accordingly. In my mind something that
is always making clean energy is better than something that just saves
energy. Likewise something that constantly saves energy is better than
something that doesn’t. Last are all of the items which are involved in
energy consumption / waste when manufactured but have little involvement
thereafter. Also included in this last category are items considered
Green for other reasons.
1.Active
energy producing items
Green energy
production (Solar, Wind, Geothermal etc.)
2. Energy
loss reducing products
Windows, doors, insulation, florescent lights,
efficient HVAC.
3. Energy
loss reducing techniques
2x6 walls, radiant barriers, shading, floor&roof
construction,
4. Passive
& misc. items
Engineered wood strand products, split
waste water systems, cinder concrete, biodegradable, recycled or
recyclable, renewable resource, local
manufacture.
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Green
value is not entirely visible and obvious. The energy it takes to
manufacture or harvest and then bring a material or product to market is
also involved. Green values can easily then be lowered or raised from
what seems intuitive. The notion to keep in mind is the clichéd ‘cradle
to grave’ lifecycle of energy consumption.
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Recycling of a house is more important than you may think, even down to
the concrete slab and roof shingles. Just because you will not be
around to see your home demolished for a shopping center does not
relieve the homeowner from longer term Green responsibilities.
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The
more local a product is produced the better and may be worth some added
cost if necessary (hopefully lower shipping will even the scales).
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Do not
rely on your builder to do all the Green homework. Building is a money
making endeavor. Your builder’s interests and yours may not align. Also
the research is time consuming and you will pay for it one way or
another. The same goes for relying on an architect. Although there are
fewer reasons for a conflict of interest, Architect’s do charge for the
expertise and or research time
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Do not take my opinion here for gospel. There are
many books out there which can provide other views and priorities.
Two are pictured above and linked.
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