See this article from the Mansfield News Journal about a utility company who, in an effort to reduce energy consumption to comply with an Ohio law, crafted a plan to deliver two compact fluorescent lamps to each customer.  The CFLs cost roughly $3.50 each, but the utility was going to charge the customer $21 for the pair.

While I’m sure lots of folks are supportive of using CFLs, the move didn’t sit well with customers.  But that’s hardly a surprise!

Click here to see a newspaper article about the house.

I have a couple of things to say about the article:

• I’ve expressed my disappointment to the author of the article that the focus of the first half ended up being on the lack of available regulations for the use of rainwater in our washing machine.
• The Dallas Chief Plumbing Inspector has been extremely cooperative and attentive to the discussion, and has informed us that sometime in August or September regulations will be created that will address our situation.
• The lack of interior use of rainwater should not put our Platinum rating at risk.

Having said all that, there are some very good points in the article.  And it otherwise sheds a positive, informative light on our project.  On a side note, the print version has a great photo of the home’s living/kitchen space.

Sean Garman has been our Green Consultant for well over a year now.  Sean has been a LEED Accredited Professional* for quite some time.  As of a few weeks ago, Sean has also become an AIA licensed Architect…a huge accomplishment!

So, congratulations, Sean!

*I used to introduce Sean as a “LEED certified professional”.  But Sean has finally got it into my head that “buildings are certified, people are accredited.”

Earth Hour is approaching!  This Saturday evening at 8:30 PM whatever your local time is, join thousands of individuals and businesses in switching off your lights for an hour to Vote Earth!  Read more about it here.

While this post has little to do with Green Building, I wanted to point out a few features of the house to show that you can still have some amazing spaces and features while building Green.

We wanted a Meditation Room designed into our space and Architect Kelly Mitchell gave us exactly what we wanted.  The room is about 11′ X 13′, with a small closet.  The room was built with a feng shui sense, so the interior door to the hall has a glass panel, and the door to the upstairs balcony is basically a wall-sized slider.  The room will have a wall-mounted TV (energy star rated!) and the sound system will share a channel with the studio.  And before you say, “TV in the meditation room?” keep in mind that the Meditation Room will also be used for yoga and tai chi so the TV will be used to watch and follow instructional videos!

The room is a very basic open space (see the photo above), but we added insulation on the wall it shares with the living room to cut down on noise.  We also had to design and have constructed a special jump duct vent to help reduce HVAC noise and to allow us to place the HVAC return in the ceiling.

The Meditation Room gets little-to-no direct sunlight in the summer and just a bit in the winter.  It also shares the upstairs balcony with the living room….it will be a great get-away!

I can’t believe that anyone reading this wouldn’t have heard of low VOC paints and varnishes.  VOCs or Volatile Organic Compounds are what makes paint have that “freshly painted” smell.  The EPA broadly describes them as “any organic compound that participates in atmospheric photochemical reactions.”  VOCs commonly used in the home are found in carpets, paints, varnishes, dry cleaner solvents, and household cleaners.

You can learn more about VOCs and how they can contribute to “sick building syndrome” by clicking here.   These are pages on a website from the EPA that do a great job of outlining the many contributors to sick building syndrome, including a listing of 12 common indoor polutants.

We have avoided VOCs in several ways:

• No carpet (we actually get a LEED for Homes point for having no carpet!)
• No VOC Paints.  We’re using Sherwin Williams’ Harmony series for our paint and you can see from the photo above, our primer has no VOCs either)
• We do dry-clean some of our clothes, but we get our clothes without plastic bags.  The plastic bags concentrate the VOCs and don’t allow them to dissipate (and we avoid throwing away dry cleaning bags every week).
• We have specified formaldehyde-free plywood and formaldehyde-free binders on our plywood finishes and furniture.
• Our cleaners are natural.  We like the Seventh Generation brand.

It took us about 2 seconds to decide that we wanted to use bamboo flooring in the non-bathroom parts of the house.   While we had beautiful 50 year old oak floors in the old house, there wasn’t enough of it to use in the new house other than to cover the floors of the 700 square foot studio space above the garage (we’ll sell the rest). 

Bamboo is the new “it flooring” for those looking for a Green product.  It probably goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that bamboo is very sustainable (it can grow up to a foot a day), is durable and is just about at the same price point as a nice oak or maple flooring.  So what are the downsides?

We’ve heard horror stories about bamboo harvested too young (I wouldn’t use anything younger than 5 years old) that sprouted when gotten wet.  And I even had an architect rant to me about how the floors she installed were too soft and got totally marked up just by walking on them.  And the bamboo is typically shipped from China  – which, by the way, isn’t known for it’s great human rights and workers’ rights history.

Here are two articles on Treehugger.com that I’ll refer you to.  They’re a bit dated (from 2004 and 2005) but they provide good background.  The first one outlines the case for and against bamboo (they come out For with a few caveats).  The second one provides a profile of one manufacturer of bamboo flooring, Teragren (which they misspell as “Teragen”), which is the flooring that we chose.  I have to admit that we chose Teragren before I read this article.  Good thing we did the right thing even without reading it!  Be sure to check out the “Environmentally smart” tab at the top of the Teragren home page – lots of good information there.

By the way, the bamboo floors were installed this week – see the photo above!

This was a new learning for me recently.  We used PVC for our sewer and french drain systems without knowing the evils of PVC.   Once we got ourselves educated we quickly moved to have our Rainwater Harvesting and irrigation company to adjust our quote to include using HDPE rather than PVC (in our gutter downspouts, our rainwater harvesting pipes, and our irrigation pipes).  I’m still waiting on the price differential, but will let you know when I get the adjusted bid.

So what’s so wrong with PVC?  According to besafenet.com,

“Our bodies are contaminated with poisonous chemicals released during the PVC lifecycle, such as mercury, dioxins, and phthalates, which may pose irreversible life-long health threats.  When produced or burned, PVC plastic releases dioxins, a group of the most potent synthetic chemicals ever tested, which can cause cancer and harm the immune and reproductive systems.”

While I wasn’t expecting to burn my PVC, the fact that it leaches mercury and dioxins into water and soil makes me never want to touch it again!  AND, PVC can’t be recycled while HDPE can be recycled and is typically made from 50% recycled materials to start with. 

So what are the alternatives?  There are several listed here.   Do your research and avoid PVC!

I wanted to create a short post to talk about exterior finishes and why we chose them.

• Brick – a green material that is highly durable.  Brick can last for decades with minimal maintenance.  Our brick was made locally so transportation costs were minimal both in dollars and carbon footprint.
• Concrete board – also a green material and highly sustainable.  This product looks contemporary, can be used for multiple applications (both on the outside walls and in the exterior sofits).  This material is also very affordable and easily replaced if a board gets broken.  The photo above shows the concrete board and Cedar Siding on the garage/studio structure (I decided I had posted too many photos of the front of the house lately!).
• Cedar siding – a fairly green material.  We debated about how much wood to put on the exterior.  The result was a moderate amount – enough to make the home’s exterior aesthetically pleasing.  This material is sustainable and long-lasting.  Also, we opted for a “non-clear cedar”, meaning we decided to have a large number of knots in the wood.  While the prevailing wisdom is that clear cedar is more pleasing to the eye, I like the more informal look of the knotted cedar that we used.
• Metal – green and durable as well.  We have metal windows, a metal roof, and metal sheathing around the top of the house and around the front window structure. 

These selections – along with our energy-efficient windows – create an environmentally-friendly fascade that is also aesthetically pleasing. 

The paints and stains on the exterior of the house are not low VOC.  We decided to use low VOC on all interior paints and stains, but not on the exterior.  We were looking to save a little bit of money and chose to go traditional.  LEED is very concerned with interior air quality and not so concerned with exterior finishes.

I came across this site - it has great Green stuff!  I absolutely love the biodegradable plates and glasses….and am particularly enamored with the pillows, especially the one pictured above.  They’re a bit pricey, but very fun!

And all of the items sold at Branch Home were picked for their sustainability – which is highlighted in the description of each item.