While we've renovated houses and apartments before, we've never built a building from scratch. I'm excited to start with a clean slate - "We can do just what we want!" But this feeling of boundless freedom is rapidly tempered by the realities of having to make trade-offs in relation to cost and time. We *have* to have the building operational by Thanksgiving. We *have* to make sure we have some money left over to actually build the business.
And then there's the sense of responsibility I feel with regard to the environment. All the information about global warming, Al Gore's peace prize...I look at my teenage children and I feel I must do my part to build responsibly. I don't want to feel guilty that I've contributed to hastening environmental disasters that they will have to deal with, no matter how small the individual impact of my actions.
Besides, with all the talk of new environmentally friendly materials and technologies I think it must be possible today to build a really green house. I'm willing to spend money on that. Let's do it!
So what's a green building? There's a bunch of decisions you make about the building materials you use, then there's power, then there are the things that use power. See my Boston renovator friend's blog "Green Moms" (link at right) for more information and dilemmas on these issues.
My vision on all the power-related stuff is, we get everything in the house to run on electricity, and then we find a way to self-generate most of our electricity, with grid tie-in for surplus/deficit management. No fossil fuels! This should be possible, right?
I take a look at the wind map for the State of Vermont, and quickly learn that despite my feeling that there is always a good breeze on our little ridge, we are in the 0 - 7% range for wind power - e.g. forget it. Then I look into solar panels. I get a quote from Vermont Solar. The system they propose will only cover 25 - 40% of our total power needs. They estimate it will save us an average of just $25 on our electric bill each month. And it will cost...wait for it...forty *thousand* smackeroos.
Well, the time of year we need the most power here in Vermont is the time of year we have the least sun - that would be winter. Kind of a major barrier, and not one we humans can influence much. We don't need air-conditioning, but we sure need heat. And it sure isn't going to be coming from solar panels any time soon.
Our last ditch effort was Geo-Thermal, until we learned we would have to re-drill the well another 200 feet deeper, and drain off a significant portion of the water going through the heating system and just pour it out into the woods. So...put a constant drain on our aquifer, still use some electricity from the grid to run it, *and* it costs twenty-three thousand smackeroos, not including the actual heating system in the house.
I give up! What's the point! Here I am really interested in being green, and willing to spend maybe 25-50% more on systems to do it. But 2-4 times???
The most organized support, at least in Vermont, comes from Efficiency Vermont. This group is a non-profit agency supported, by regulation, by the electrical power industry in Vermont. They have practical solutions, but at the end of the day, their sole purpose is to reduce the demand for electricity so they don't have to build more power plants. If fossil fuels are more energy effective, they are all for them.
Their overall perspectives for new homes are -
- Make sure the house is completely insulated, and then properly ventilated
- Use energy star HVAC and appliances
- Use compact flourescent lighting for at least 10 fixtures in the house
For following their guidelines and getting inspected and certified, they offer some pretty major financial incentives.
And the single criteria that makes the biggest difference? Don't build a house bigger than you really need. We're pretty down with that.
So, we're giving in and following this system, even though it means we will be running a bunch of stuff on propane gas. If ever alternative energy systems become truly cost realistic, we will just retrofit.
Some other decisions that are 'green':
- baseboard hot water heat instead of radiant floors - more adjustable, especially for a seasonal home when we won't be there all the time.
- tankless hot water heaters - again, why heat water all the time when we are only there on weekends/summer. This is "instant" hot for the whole house - actually it's "almost" instant, since the heater is located in the basement and the water has to travel up to the faucets.
- High-efficiency wood burning "fireplace insert" instead of an open fireplace. No bad particulates, very efficient, will further reduce our need for gas-powered heat
Albert dreams of manning one of those external wood-burning furnaces for heat once we are retired and living up there. You have to feed it every day, but we certainly have plenty of dead wood around. I dream of bio-diesel, cheap photo-voltaic panels, putting a mini-hydro-dam on the beaver pond. But meanwhile we at least have made decisions so we can move forward and get the house built by Thanksgiving!
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