A Brighter Shade of Green, Indeed

[fraxinus]

The Sunday Business section of today's (9-26) New York Times has a feature article entitled "Can We Build a Brighter Shade of Green?" The article focuses on a house under construction in Norwich, VT with a very high degree of passive design and near zero energy usage - continuous air tight envelope, 17" thick double walls, 15" of styrofoam beneath the foundation slab, solar orientation, etc., etc. Lots of good ideas and innovative approaches in this house, but... This is a 2000 square foot house - relatively modest by today's standards. The cost? At least $550,000 and possibly "quite a bit more" according to the article. The "green" of the money needed overwhelms the green of the building techniques.


It seems to me if green construction and passive design become the exclusive provinces of the super affluent in fact or are perceived to be we will never make significant progress in home energy conservation. What percentage of Americans do you suppose could afford a half million dollar plus home?

 

[dougstove]

Two comments:
i) '2000 sq. ft., modest by today's standards'. Only 25-30 years ago the average new house in Canada (and I think the USA) was only 1000-1200 sq. ft. Many of us no doubt grew up in suburban bungalows of that size. One of the greenest things to do is to consider how much volume one actually needs and uses within the heated, conditioned envelope. The monster houses grew because the marginal building cost of adding another 'slice' of studs+rafter+sheathing is low, once basic services are installed. But the longterm heat costs are significant. I look at houses in suburban Ontario now and wonder what people are thinking - do they hate their tiny families so much that everyone needs 3 separate rooms to hide from each other?
So today's standards are going to change - one way or another. Just because we have been collectively stupid for 20 years does not mean we have to be stupid forever.

ii) We currently make no price differential on lots oriented for passive solar, versus lots on northern exposure. I constantly see houses (including mine) oriented almost willfully wrong for passive solar. This is nuts. Over a house lifetime, proper orientation and even modest design considerations can greatly lower heating costs.
Solar Nova Scotia (http://www.solarns.ca/course.php) has a great book on these design principles.

 

[begreen]

Sounds like a bit of overkill to me. A staggered 2x4 wall that is well insulated will stop almost all thermal bridging. Even a conventional 2x6 wall with a 1" exterior insulation cladding and conventional fiberglass insulation is going to do a great job at energy reduction. That home is fine for someone with a large pocketbook, but far from what we need in standard housing. There are a lot of good ideas in what they are trying to accomplish with this house, but most folks don't have 2 lawyer's worth of salaries to afford some of the extremes in the building.

FWIW, my BIL has been heating his house in NY state with ~2 cords of wood or less a year since the early '80s. They built it with staggered 2x4 construction and paid close attention to sealing around any envelope penetration and vapor barriers. Consumption is even less now that they have an attached greenhouse providing some good solar gains.

 

[Dune]

I am trying to wrap my head arround 15" of styrofoam under the slab. That seems silly and structuraly inadequate as well, though I haven't seen the design. I agree with Begreen, stagegered 2x4s are a great system.

Like a lot of constuction today, I imagine they are making an "Architechural Statement".

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Two comments:
i) '2000 sq. ft., modest by today's standards'. Only 25-30 years ago the average new house in Canada (and I think the USA) was only 1000-1200 sq. ft. Many of us no doubt grew up in suburban bungalows of that size. One of the greenest things to do is to consider how much volume one actually needs and uses within the heated, conditioned envelope. The monster houses grew because the marginal building cost of adding another 'slice' of studs+rafter+sheathing is low, once basic services are installed. But the longterm heat costs are significant. I look at houses in suburban Ontario now and wonder what people are thinking - do they hate their tiny families so much that everyone needs 3 separate rooms to hide from each other?
So today's standards are going to change - one way or another. Just because we have been collectively stupid for 20 years does not mean we have to be stupid forever.

ii) We currently make no price differential on lots oriented for passive solar, versus lots on northern exposure. I constantly see houses (including mine) oriented almost willfully wrong for passive solar. This is nuts. Over a house lifetime, proper orientation and even modest design considerations can greatly lower heating costs.
Solar Nova Scotia (http://www.solarns.ca/course.php) has a great book on these design principles.

I think you hit on a big point right there regarding size. I'm working on the attic of my 1000 sq ft post war cape. It will probably be 1500 sq ft when the attic is finished off. It will not be super tight, but it will be fairly well insulated when I'm done. I'm hoping that heating costs will stay low. The high ceilings of a lot of the new houses must be a bear to heat.

Matt

 

[fraxinus]

I agree completely about the size issue. The average in 1970 was 1400 square feet. The most recent figure I've seen for today is about 2400 square feet - a tremendous increase during a time when family size was actually shrinking. As always, however, averages can be deceiving. I'm not sure how much of that 2400 square foot average can be accounted for by the proliferation of McMansions in the 10,000 sq. ft. and up range.

Per square foot construction costs can very tremendously according to architectural design, materials used, local labor costs and other variable factors, but the cost of the house in the article was well in excess of $250 per square foot. And that's just the house without considering land, utility connections, driveway/landscaping, etc. If we're going to move toward more rational house size, green building practices and minimal energy consumption, we're going to have to show it can be done at a price competitive with conventional construction.

We're also going to have to create greater incentives for home buyers to look at energy issues. Not too long ago the local paper had an article which interviewed some experienced Maine builders. With a few exceptions, the home buyers opted for upgrades in flooring, granite counter tops, etc. instead of increased energy efficiency. No builder can afford to construct an energy efficient house if the buying public chooses the trendy and the superficial over the substantial.

 

[dougstove]

There is also the bigger systemic issue that we tax labour income higher than we tax materials or energy.
So the careful, inconspicuous master craftsman work that can generate careful, tight houses with minimal thermal bridging is systemically disfavoured relative to superficial materials like granite counter tops etc. or slapping up bigger houses with more material that use more energy over their lifetime.

I do not want to raise the political temperature, but anybody interested in skilled craftsmen work should be thinking about the difference between income tax and consumption (dare I say carbon or energy...) tax.

Right now the whole revenue system is skewed against local labour time, in favour of material and energy consumption.

 

[GaryGary]

Hi,
It does seem like a lot of the "lets demonstrate a really low energy use home" projects are over the top. I think that the people who take on these projects often have enough net worth that money is a bit of a secondary issue.

But, there are some practical examples of very low to zero energy homes that are not overly expensive:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SolarHomes/MAZeroEnergy/MAZeroEnergy.htm
This is actually a less than zero energy home that is not hugely expensive -- its also a small home.

Some more in this section:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SolarHomes/plansps.htm#Zero
eg Zero Energy Home Built by Appalachian State University
and A Cold-Climate Case Study for Affordable Zero Energy Homes

You don't have to go all the way down to zero energy -- zero is just a number.

You can start with a simple home heat loss calculator -- find out which element of the home (walls, windows, ceiling, infiltration) is sticking out as the worst heat loss component, and see what you can do to know than down in a cost effective way. Its not that expensive to cut home heat loss by 50% with that approach:
http://www.builditsolar.com/References/Calculators/HeatLoss/HeatLoss.htm
Just running the calculator tells you a lot about what to concentration on.

I think that even these over the top zero energy homes are valuable in that they point out some individual ideas that can be applied to more cost effective homes.

I'd love to have the chance to take a cut at a new home myself


Gary

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I know a guy that lives off the grid in a beautiful little house that he built himself in Deerfield, NH. He heats the whole thing on 1-1.5 cord a year. He has a greenhouse built on one side and the other is the side of a hill- less heating and cooling requirements.

I can guarandamntee you that it didn't cost $550K to build... even with today's money, it probably didn't cost $20K. Most of the lumber was milled on the property.