Goin' Green

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Goin' Green

Now We're Talking

Framing is finished and the house is dried in. Electrical and plumbing should be finished soon, then the foam envelope goes in. Dried in!

The home is generating a lot of interest in it's green features. Just a few of the green features is complete foam envelope, solar radiant flooring, double pane-low e windows, lot orientation, and renewable bamboo flooring. There's going to be a lot of activity from here on in. Now if we can avoid delays....

Finally - progress in action.

Rain, design delays, and shipping from Wisconsin are finally behind the project. steel

The steel for the foundation is in and the tubing for the radiant flooring is going in. RadiantTubing

It started slowly, and picked up steam. Can't tell you how many people think it's a little weird to put a solar radiant floor in central Texas, but I have a feeling that when the winter heating bills come in, there will be some grins when the negligible utility bills hit. If things are on schedule, the cement comes in next week and we'll have a real live slab. Then the real fun begins.

9 Ways to Make Your Home More Energy Efficient

September 3, 2009 By Harvey M. Sachs, Ph.D.

The house is a system. You save money and improve performance when you take cost-effective measures that reduce building loads, and then install systems and appliances that are the right size to meet the reduced loads. In general, over-sizing worsens performance and increases costs.

The most effective strategy for improving household energy efficiency is to first target your home’s envelope—walls, attic, windows, and doors. Then improve the energy efficiency of systems, such as heating, cooling, lighting, and appliances. Finally, consider clean energy generation (solar, geothermal, and so on).

1- Make sure your walls and attic are well insulated.

Effective insulation slows the rate that heat flows out of the house in winter or into the house in summer, so less energy is required to heat or cool the house. If your house has no wall insulation, and it has more-or-less continuous wall cavities (such as conventional stud walls), blown-in insulation can greatly improve your comfort and save enough energy to be very cost-effective. (It rarely pays to blow additional insulation into already insulated walls.) If your attic is unfinished, it often pays to upgrade its insulation.

[ Find an energy auditor near you. GreenHomeGuide has the nation's #1 directory of local green home professionals. ]

Your contractor’s expertise is more important than the insulation material you choose. Properly installed fiberglass, cellulose, and most foam insulation materials can all reduce the heat conduction of the completed wall system. The key is “properly installed.” Ideally, the contractor will use an infrared camera during or after installation to look for voids.

And it begins

So the construction has begun. First, the lot was cleared of the cedar trees. p5120491 This took about a day, then the lot was leveled.

The picture is a little small, but you can kinda see the little dot on the cleared area near the middle. A jack rabbit was trying to figure out what happened to his cedar tree.

p5140504 The foundation forms are up and fill dirt has been brought in. p5190545 It looks like we have the final plans for the radiant floor heating.

They now have the rough plumbing in and are waiting for the city inspector to give them the green tag.

It's a shame that BTU has suspended it's Solar Rebate Program until October. But, then again, it's not that long after the house is finished that we'll be able to put on the finishing touches.

GreenWashing - buyer beware

According to Wikipedia -

Greenwashing (green whitewash) is the practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly, such as by presenting cost cuts as reductions in use of resources.^[1] It is a deceptive use of green PR or green marketing. The term green sheen has similarly been used to describe organizations that attempt to show that they are adopting practices beneficial to the environment.^[2]

Several companies have had to withdraw products from the Energy Star program because they didn't meet the standards. You'll also find many repackaged products in the grocery store claiming to be green, but their packaging color is about as green as they get.

When looking at cleaners, do you look for concentrates which you mix with water before you use them? This dramatically reduces the shipping costs associated with the product. It may seem more expensive initially to purchase concentrated products, but you save not only in shipping costs to get the product to you, but you save trips to the store to get more when you run out.

When you see a "Green" product, look closely at it. Does it really perform better than non-green products. Is there something about it which will lessen impact on the environment?

One example would be "paper or plastic?" Paper biodegrades, but plastic can be recycled, if you will do it. Metal roof for your house, or asphalt shingles? Metal can be recycled, but most asphalt shingles wind up in the dump - never decomposing. However, to be fair, in some areas shingles can be recycled into road surface, mulch or several other after life products.

Go Green! But, go Green carefully.

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