Shades of Green
To date, the number one question, comment and critique of this project has been about our “green” commitment. Are we really being “eco-friendly”, or is this all just a vanity project? I suppose one wouldn’t put this all online if there wasn’t a hint of narcissism involved, but I like to believe I’m a little more humble than that. Regardless, I welcome all of the comments and I hope the criticism keeps us honest.
So what are our green strategies? As I’ve mentioned before, we hadn’t originally set out to build a green home. We simply wanted a larger home, and while this remains true, our priorities have changed along the way. We’ve come to realize we should be building a smarter home and not just a bigger home. We’ve also come to appreciate our eco responsibilities and felt it was important to document the realities that came with this decision. And there are realities that come with those decisions. Financial realities. We’ve evaluated a variety of eco-friendly solutions–and I’d love to use all of them–but we simply cannot afford to.
Many of the specifics are still in the air and won’t be finalized until we’re well into construction, but I thought I’d take this opportunity to shed some light on what green features we’re planning for:
- Energy Star certification
- Compact house footprint that fell below allowable coverage
- ICF foundation
- Closed cell, medium density spray foam insulation
- Low E II insulated, argon-filled windows
- High efficiency furnace + heat pump + HRV
- On-demand hot water
- Passive heating & cooling (solar chimney + cross ventilation + window shading)
- Daylighting (clerestory + internal windows)
- Energy Star appliances
- Rainwater collection
- CFL and/or LED lighting
Similarly, we’ve also had to abandon a variety of other green solutions as a result of their costs:
- Green roof
- SIPs
- Geothermal heating & cooling
- Grey water collection (although we haven’t completely ruled this out…)
- Solar & wind power
I plan on discussing each of these topics in greater detail as we progress through the project, and I’m sure things will evolve as we continue to evaluate our options.
I’m assuming we will continue to face accusations of greenwashing, but hopefully this clears a few things up and illustrates that we are indeed trying to build the greenest home we can. Even if that shade of green isn’t as bright as we’d like.
Post Tags: CFL, eco, energy star, environment, green, ICF, LED, SIPs, strategy, windows
This project is absolutely fascinating - both the house and the blog. I’ve shared this with my mom, as she is planning to build her second home in Ottawa, as environmentally-friendly as possible. Cheers, M.
— posted on July 2, 2008Thanks Michele! I hope our experience will provide some insight for your mom… if she’s got any questions, I’ll gladly answer what I can.
— posted on July 3, 2008With rainwater collection you could look into using this as grey water storage as well to fill the toilet tanks for flushing etc. The other item to consider is low VOC emitting chemicals such as paint etc. and a hepa filter system for the HVAC.
— posted on July 8, 2008Right on. We are currently in the process of balancing renovation and ecological impact. Add the real-life constraints of time and budget, and “greenovating” is not as simple as it looks on television. Having said that, when thinking about materials and projects for our home, we now carefully and seriously consider the environmental impact - and that shift in mainstream thinking shouldn’t be underestimated.
— posted on July 24, 2008I’m thrilled to stumble upon your website. My partner and I are going through a very similar process — determining that we need a home for the two of us, that renovating makes most sense, and that sustainability is essential but the budget is the main constraint.
We settled on very similar choices to you regarding what we will be doing and what things we consider nice to haves but can’t afford right now. Particularly, we had to put solar water heating and PV power generation on hold, but overall we feel that we’ll have a very energy efficient house once it’s built.
We’ll keep track of your progress, you keep track of ours.
— posted on September 22, 2008