the sustainable line : a blog on green building

The Utterly Amazing Colorado Renewable Energy Conference

2011-04-18T23:03:00.009-06:00

Hope I'm not over selling this but I have been part of a team putting together what may be the best looking conference I have seen. You can read the bulletin below but when I was asked to put together a LEED professional track I thought of the most interesting folks in the state to consider participating.

They all said yes to my amazement- so we will have an all star cast of sustainable builders providing an inside scoop from Award winning Architect H:T Design, the glamorous David Johnston and his Zero Energy Home musings, the ever cool Brian Dunbar of CSU's IBE. We'll cover the pioneering LEED for schools projects, learn about a radical energy design called Solar Banking and hear about the real world of planting green roofs in Colorado.

The second day I have assembled three ground breaking building tech companies, all featured on Inhabitat.com, a Passive House seminar, and some serious energy efficiency for your existing home with everybody's favorite Paul Kriescher of Lightly Treading. Hot Damn, I should print tee shirts.

And now the blub-- Attend the Colorado Renewable Energy Conference (CREC), themed “Local Action—Global Solutions,” in Fort Collins June 2-4, 2011.

Hosted by the Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES), the conference offers an in-depth exploration of the extraordinary work done in Colorado and Northern Front Range. Over 50 sessions and 70 speakers on renewable energy, sustainable building and technologies, environmental science, and more will be presented by foremost experts from throughout Colorado and across the nation.

Discover how Colorado is a world leader in the new green economy with an entire Thursday dedicated to professional development with credentialing tracks, including LEED-accredited professionals, real estate “EcoBrokers,” engineers, educators, and community-based energy development.

On Friday, explore public policy and governmental initiatives in comprehensive sessions with experts from NREL, CSU, and industry-leading companies. Also on tap is a tour of some favorite green sites and tastes of Fort Collins. Celebrate local and state renewable-energy innovators as well as CRES’ 15-year anniversary at the awards banquet.

Bring the family on Saturday for a day full of hands-on fun and how-to help for green building, solar energy, electric transportation, local action, green companies, and much more.

CRES gratefully acknowledges the leadership role of the City of Fort Collins in helping host CREC.

Get the details and find out how to participate right here on the conference Web site

A Solar Eclipse in Colorado

2011-02-20T20:37:00.002-07:00

Xcel Energy, the largest provider of electricity in Colorado has been at the center of a solar renaissance largly through no fault of their own. If you get Xcel electricity then you were able to get a deep discount on a solar electric system that would be the envy of your non Xcel customer friends at almost half of the sticker price, until last week at least. Xcel has decided to unceremoniously pull the plug on the Solar*Rewards rebate program to the surprise of hundreds of solar companies that grew from the rebate frenzy.

I have not been the biggest fan of this system as I have always contended that efficiency is above all the soundest investment that has the added bonus of comfort and health. Alas the consumer has spoken and they want solar panels at good prices. Along comes the first voter approved amendment in the country for renewable energy, and part of Amendment 37 is a distributed energy resource as a percentage of the total renewable profile, subsidized by rate paying customers of publicly traded companies under the direction of the Public Utilities Commission. Whew.

The result is cheap solar for those who can afford it which is subsidized by all rate payers. This actually is a good thing, public policy approved by voters to tax themselves to provide renewable energy for themselves (if they happen to live in a for profit service provider area) is a very forward thinking step. The result is huge demand and a flourishing and competitive market of solar providers. The solar trade group CoSIEA has hundreds of members which have seen a real demand for solar energy with growth nearly doubling in the last year. If you don’t like subsidies I would suggest you protest your gasoline supplier as your bear your outrageousness on the small companies that we are speaking of. This is a bold step in developing a viable clean energy future that we all ultimately will benefit from.

That growth has been in large part due to the financial stability of a rebate program mixed with reduced equipment costs, a competitive landscape and strong demand. This four legged chair just had a leg cut off by Xcel Energy and previously by Black Hills Energy. Xcel’s news release claims that the price of solar equipment is now competitive, and with the government subsidizing solar and Xcel fulfilling their obligation of Amendment 37 they are happy to abandon this program because of its success at creating a marketplace.

Now as I mentioned I am not a big fan of subsidizing solar energy without a comprehensive energy efficiency effort. Nor do I like seeing solar electric get moving while solar thermal stands at the side of the track waving goodbye, but the train has long left the station. With the sudden drop in support the train very well may be going off the cliff. When Black Hills dropped their rebate program installs almost disappeared. CoSIEA is estimating about half of the 5300 jobs in solar will be lost in short order. We just lost another leg of our proverbial chair (sorry about the mixed metaphors by the way.)

"We look forward to the industry's continued progress so that it can ultimately become self-supporting," Xcel Colorado president David Eves said in a statement.This was a believable notion as Xcel had a schedule of slowly stepping down their rebates in an orderly and timely manner with the consensus of solar companies. By cutting off the rebate program immediately and stripping all credits to the bone Xcel (and Mr. Eves?) is really saying to me “We are tired of dealing with you pesky small solar companies and distributed energy is such pain so we’ll try to run you out of business even though it really cost us very little.”

This is the only reasonable conclusion I can have at Xcel’s behavior after their touting of themselves as such a green corporation. They are well aware of the instability it will cause for solar companies who have tight margins and high overhead. Most planned projects will have to be put on hold and renegotiated, many of them undoubtedly being cancelled. The market is also very young and has not given the industry much time to ramp up supply with demand. Xcel says they have met their requirements and is proud of the work they did but I am not so sure they are not meeting the expectations of the electorate (and their customers) who clearly wants a thriving renewable energy marketplace. A two legged chair is not what the public wants.

So that is the background. Will the industry fall apart like it did in the eighties? Will Xcel back off like they did when they made other unpopular decisions that quickly drew the wrath of consumers (like a surcharge for solar owners) or will the PUC come in to settle things down? One thing is for sure, Xcel will not be burdened with the reputation of being a “green” utility.

Green Building Interview on Saudi Arabia

2011-01-13T23:52:00.006-07:00

Here is part of an interview I gave for the International Quality & Productivity Center. They are hosting a green building conference in Saudi Arabia in March focusing on how to do it affordably. If you want to read the rest you can access it here.

IQPC: Is there a concerted effort in Middle Eastern and other major governments to inculcate knowledge about renewable energy and sustainable construction from the grass‐roots level by starting to educate the younger generation about this necessary sector? Do you see any hindrances on this front?

AM: Most governments at this point are spotty in their assertion for renewable energy and sustainable building as complex sociological and financial issues cloud a concise message to their younger populations. None‐the‐less sustainable technologies and construction are the fastest growing sectors in many colleges and demand is forcing institutional and leadership responses. As young Middle Eastern designers and builders see the immense renewable energy resources of solar for instance they will demand access to the technologies and jobs which entail its implementation. When we speak about sustainability we are really talking about a massive generational shift. The implementation of education on sustainable infrastructure will need to engage the entire cross section of a young population regardless of race, class or gender to be effective.

IQPC: How do you see sustainable construction having a positive effect on the Middle East’s emerging economies?

AM: Sustainable development and construction is being embraced for a multitude of reasons: health, energy & water security and quality. For a company whose greatest costs are payroll, for instance, a building that has great IEQ (indoor environmental quality) will immediately see an increase in employee productivity, with a resulting edge in the marketplace. For a desert region, water and peak energy load are major long term issues that sustainable building addresses in a substantial way. The standard of living for a growing population will be based in large part on how they allocate their resources. They can create buildings that actually provide resources for a community rather than take from it. A concerted effort in sustainable development can result in an entire region creating an economic super‐cluster based on its investment.

IQPC: Sustainable construction cannot have the desired effect on an economy’s stability unless it is accompanied by concerted efforts to also implement renewable energy alternatives. Would you agree with this statement? Is this becoming a reality on the ground?

AM: Renewable energy production technologies can often be centralized or distributed, but by their nature buildings and developments are only distributed, meaning that efficiency gains can be only provided at the source. A flattened peak energy demand presented by sustainable building is utterly necessary to implement broad use of renewables. Energy efficiency is the lowest cost of all infrastructures in simple payback when first built but become increasingly difficult to achieve with existing buildings. As more renewable energy sources come online they will need an adequate infrastructure capable of properly using the energy when produced. While much attention has been paid to renewable energy it is only viable when the overall consumption of fossil‐fuel based energy is reduced and infrastructure can properly use it. Wind energy for instance has already saturated certain markets which then have to sell the energy at a loss or shut the turbines down, so a balance of supply and demand is critical for economic stability.

This interview was conducted for the Cost‐Effective Sustainable Design & Construction Saudi Arabia 2011 conference which takes place from 13 ‐ 16 March, 2011 at the Riyadh Marriott Hotel, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For more information on the event or to register, and to download more exclusive content, visit www.sustainableconstructionsaudi.com or email us on enquiry@iqpc.ae

eVolo Magazine Cities of Tomorrow

2010-12-07T20:24:00.007-07:00

eVolo Magazine is an exploration of the leading edge of building design. I was fortunate to contribute two articles to the third edition titled CITIES OF TOMORROW Envisioning the Future of Urban Habitat, available now.

BEIJING CREATIVE ZONE: At its heart, the UNStudio’s winning design for the Beijing River Creative Zone competition is a place of evolution. Designed as an urban interface with the natural environment, the complex will house and incubate creative business ventures that, interacting with each other, form a creative economic enterprise cluster. From the urban grid it may be an interpretation of the adjoining undulating waterway, or conversely from the perspective of the river, the segmented design scheme may be seen as breaking the vast Beijing urban grid.

MILLENNIUM PARK AND THE FUTURE OF GREEN URBANISM Interview with Helen Doria: People are much more attracted to a project that is extraordinary than something that plays it safe. Who wants to give their money to a nice safe ordinary project? What excites communities? Certainly not a cookie cutter project. The vision and the vision carriers are the ones who make cities spectacular. Those vision carriers can be everyone from the architect and designers, the Mayor, to the funders and the people of the city. Everyone can hold a vision.

You will find the rest of these two articles and much more in the magazine, not on the internets. Why is it worth it you say? Thought provoking, beautiful, ugly, something to keep. Or as eVolo says -- to study, to develop, to evolve, to fly away...

Passive House: A Case for Less Tech in Building

2010-10-10T11:09:00.007-06:00

What’s better than high tech? In a word (well two) no tech. This is the elemental argument for Passive House. I attended a very informative talk by Kat Kligenburg the Executive Director of the Passive House Institute US. The logics and economics of Passive House has been well developed and documented in Europe and now the case is being made for a US market.

Build a shell so well insulated and air tight that cooling and heating is seriously reduced, which in turn means the home does not require an active HVAC system. A building is developed using an elaborate energy modeling program that accounts for wall details, windows, doors, internal heat loads (like you are), external climate conditions, orientation, thermal mass properties, air exchange, and on and on. The end result is a home that eliminates the cost of HVAC.

So what does this mean in real terms when it comes to the decision making process of building? If you are aiming for cheap plentiful square footage then this is not for you. If you have that log cabin house in the woods with a great wall of windows in your mind then you are pushing your luck. If you are looking to build the most sustainable home that has an outstanding energy profile, and your are willing to give up a dormer or two you might have just hit the jack pot.

Right now America’s notion of “green” building is basically conventional building with a whole lot of gadgets hooked up to it. Maybe we’ll put in a 2x6 wall instead of a 2x4 and bump up the windows but the real strategy is almost always to pluck from the budget for high tech. Do a search for green building and you will be inundated with high tech stuff—condensing furnaces, solar thermal, boilers, radiant floors, SEER ratings, solar panels, geo thermal. All great solutions to keep an OK house comfortable.

The Passive House argument is that if you properly design and implement a super insulated envelope you eliminate the need for all this gadget wizardry. It really starts to make economic sense when you don’t need really expensive stuff like a ground source heat pump (aka the mislabeled geo thermal system) to make the house work. The project parameters change and frontend design work becomes critical, rather than plugging in equipment to a preconceive design.

Now extrapolate this thinking into the not so distant future. Your gee-wiz equipment is still using energy, aka costing you money and requiring maintenance. Counterpoint the Passive House model in which there is no required continuing operating cost, meaning lot less problems compared to the gee-wiz stuff buried in the mechanical room. I have seen a few really complex systems that will eventually develop expensive ticks. So dollar for dollar the Passive House makes a better economic and environmental choice. Well at least that is what Ms. Klingenburg will have you believe.

Ground source heat pump hydronic cooling and heating with solar assist:

A field of solar

2010-10-04T09:09:00.001-06:00

As a part of our 2010 Solar Tour in Ft Collins we got a inside look at the huge solar farm on CSU's Foothills campus. Here is an artful look at the 2MW array.

Workshop: The Art of Sustainable Building: Seeing the Connections

2010-09-12T13:34:00.007-06:00

I'll be co-presenting a workshop with my friend Scott Peters on the latest thinking on green building. We are not doing a PowerPoint, only a few props and spontaneous conversation on everything and anything to do with sustainable building practices.

4pm in the green building tent-- Saturday, September 18th at the largest green fair of its kind, The Sustainable Living Fair.

Here is our description: Beyond branding, green building is real building science.This lively and participatory presentation will cover how reducing energy consumption and the benefits of renewable energy are interdependent. Learn the connection between what we build, "the third skin" and "the long tail pipe" and what to do about it. Please bring your questions.

Andrew Michler and Scott Peters are both LEED APs and NCRES Board Members. They share a passion to educate, encourage and engage in the greatest challenge of our time, creating a sustainable built environment. Andrew is a consultant and writer, Scott is a builder and trained Home Energy Auditor.

Taste of a Solar Tour

2010-08-14T14:19:00.006-06:00

Our 2010 solar tour is Coming up on October 2 for the Northern Colorado Renewable Society. We grabbed a camera and winged it. This promotional video is a walk through one of our tour stops to give a taste of what green building with renewables looks like.

Everything You Need to Know About Green Building From Tetris

2010-08-08T10:53:00.011-06:00

Could it be that a lot of what we know about contemporary architecture can be learned from a game of Tetris? The benefits of modular block building are obvious -- from lowered manufacturing costs and reduced material use to the quick turnaround of complex forms that can be portable and highly adaptable. The concept of building from prefabricated components is rich with potential.

The Tetris video may be a tongue-in-cheek shot at grim Soviet-era buildings, but the imagery it conjures is one of a rich and vivid future for our built environment. The concept is clear -- you can build elaborate and beautiful buildings from simple modules. The future of building, especially sustainable development, is looking toward prefab building and increased density to solve some of our greatest challenges.

Take a look at this slideshow on Inhabitat to read about thirteen building that explore the future of development.

2010 Colorado Solar Homes Tour

2010-08-07T15:22:00.002-06:00

check it out...

Don't Bring a Coffee Cup to a Gun Fight

2010-07-25T12:25:00.004-06:00

Originally posted on the Elephant Journal

We have all witnessed a dizzying and destructive number of years in politics and our current political climate really is not much different (Get the government out of my politics!). Politics is sometimes where it shouldn’t be. A friend is teaching his first writing composition class at college level. The theme is “green washing” and while doing his research he looked up “green” on Webster’s Dictionary online. He told me basically that Webster’s summed up “green” as an environmental political movement. That may have been true in the eighties, but thinking of being environmentally conscious as being political is absurd now. That is like saying science or exercise is a political movement. “Green” is really a lifestyle and technical response to our environmental impact.

Believing in politics is a little like believing in money. They are there, but really only exist in our minds. We created these from whole cloth. When you make them solid you lose their true value and meaning, politics becomes reactionary and destructive. The environmental movement may also be created by our minds, but what is really behind it is entire host of items, from buildings, technology, food, infrastructure, and simply leaving things alone. A lot of these things are as solid as anything we will experience. In the attempt to label “green” as political the trouble begins.

How do you label healthy food as political, or low impact buildings, or clean transportation? Can you take sides when it comes to environmental contaminants and children’s health, or collapsing eco-systems? Politics enters when the proposed solutions change our economic dynamics, and the perceived losers balk. The big potential losers right now are the “mined energy” aka fossil fuel interests who have been doing what they do for a long time. They have a lot of friends, a lot of accumulated wealth, inertia (we are not talking about the Higgs Field) and “guns”.

What I mean about guns is that they are willing and able to defend themselves, the political version of a gun fight. They have no second thoughts about being subsidized by polluting your air and literally putting the next untold number of generations at risk to keep their income source intact. We all know this. We have seen the bizarre and embarrassing denial of the science behind atmospheric carbon. That is giving way to the predictable explanation that, yea, we have a dramatic effect on the environment but there is nothing we can really do about it. The results of this injection of carbon into our atmosphere are hard to conjure, and those with little imagination cannot see that there are also many solutions. Problem is that the conventional money makers will have to stop making as much money, and they have guns, and they are ready to use them. In the next few months we will see these “guns” pulled and aimed right at our politicians, our citizenry, and our sense of reasonableness. Well that’s politics for you.

Meanwhile the “green” movement marches on. We have our green festivals, our green conferences, green websites and magazines. I go to “Green Drinks” and “Green Expos” and talk about green building at parties and coffee shops. I am always on the hunt for information, and so are my colleagues. I get 10-20 newsletters and announcements a day about green building, and write one myself (the sustainable line). There is always the next new thing, big and small. Mostly it is good news. Look at this new building, or come to our event, or join the discussion, fill out our survey. There is bad news too. The economy has taken out all kinds of great companies and non-profits. Buildings designed to be “green” are not as efficient as designed. New studies coming out showing our environmental impact is much larger than previously believed.

We need to sit down and talk some more. More newsletters, studies, meetings, festivals and parties. This is the “coffee cup” tradition. Reasonable people who want to make money not on the back of the next generations. They are talking, investing and organizing in the belief that we have the capacity and collective will to develop a more environmentally benign society. Good policy is necessary and vital to this success. Many online petitions are being filled out as you read this.

This effort is extraordinary considering both the complexity of the problems and a somewhat exasperated population. The technical details of energy use and resource management push the limits of the most capable of organizations. These efforts will require a sheer scalability involving the entire of society that has historically belonged only to the waging of world wars. The population is increasingly becoming wary of both “green-washing” and “green” overload. If there is no real way to tell what makes a substantial impact and what is just a sales pitch many will avoid the topic. If the “green” movement does not provide an economic incentive then many more potential participants will sit on the sidelines.

My wife has a saying she learned in Chicago “coffee cup revolutionaries”. These are passionate people who speak big but do not actually do anything. They want to overthrow the system but have no idea where to begin. While this is certainly an embarrassment for all involved it also may be a good thing I suspect. Revolutions often replace one problem with another and so there is not much real progress. Non-the-less what the green movement really is presenting is a real revolution. An actual sea change is underway on how we conduct ourselves and how we will use our resources. Perhaps the people who see “green” as political are worried about the idea that this movement is simply replacing one problem with another and a loss of income for the traditional players. This remains to be seen but make no bones about it; our current socio-economic tract is changing our planet’s condition dramatically.

My wife has another saying that she learned in her hometown. As she puts it “There is good politics for bad reasons, and bad politics for good reasons.” This gives permission to get things done. Politics, remember is not a solid thing, only the results. The inside traditional players know how to bend ears and pad campaigns to protect them from change. As we allow the traditional industries act as they will predictably do, fear based and misinforming, we should not just wait for reasonableness to win the day. We need permission to be both reasonable and forceful. Yes sign the petition, and go to the parties and talk, but don’t be distracted. Your weapon is science. Incorporate what you know into your life and bring that environmental vision back into the world. Act beyond your own needs.

When the silly global warming deniers prattle on, take the opportunity to disagree, kindly but with certainty. It should be absolutely unacceptable to socially deny our impact in the world, even down to the individual.Do not allow doubt to be spread by exclamations that cost and freedom will be irrepealably impaired. These doubts are a smoke screen to delay the inevitable, we will have to change the way we do things. We really change all the time, only this one is bigger. First you change yourself and then you help others.

Politics is really a tool, and social pressure and engagement are the most powerful ways to justly distribute not only the costs but also the opportunities for a more sustainable civilization. It all starts as a state of mind. Then the art of changing of minds is really politics at its best.

P.S I wrote this essay months before the Tea Bag Party circus inspired the much lesser covered and controversial Coffee Party. Interestingly to me that this essay feels a little like a commentary on the Coffee Party before it even existed.

Goood Morning Economyyyyyy!

2010-07-17T20:32:00.013-06:00

Alternative View

Goood Morning Economyyyyyy! That’s right while you were sleeping we lost more of everything, jobs, we lost a gulf to oil, and a lot of homes went poof too. Sick of it, sick, sick, sick. Mad, mad, mad! Politics is a red faced bully shouting to a blue faced pansy holding his breath and hoping. Start to talk about the big picture, you know, the environment and we have a glassy eyed, quivering and splintered society on our hands. Our collective anxiety feeds a self imposed moratorium on figuring out how the heck we going to redesign a world that is going to run on granola and tree bark. We can’t even keep the status quo now, and we are supposed to do it with less energy! Is that crazy or just stooopid?

Ok so let’s say it going to heck- the environment that is. We've heard it for years and, well, the cork is out of the champagne bottle. We have drunk our fill, if somebody has to clean up after the party at least it isn’t us. Ok so there are a few angry drunks who talk about solar flares and spotted owls, but come on it was a blast while it lasted. We may have to do with mega banks and micro-politics for a while but we seen worse, sorta. All we need now is a refinance and a job- we'll look into that carbon thing afterwards- deal?

$400 a gallon fuel?

2010-06-29T20:05:00.006-06:00

Doug Johnson of the consulting firm the Catshot Group gave a fantastic five minutes on how Uncle Sam's best defense is a good energy efficiency offence.

How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Entropy

2010-06-24T22:39:00.004-06:00

Here is a talk (5min) I was fortunate to give at Ignite Ft Collins- it is about the fate of the universe, eggs, and of course- sustainable building.

Is LEED Still Leading the Way for Green Building?

2010-05-26T22:43:00.004-06:00

I wrote this opinion piece for Inhabitat- let us know what you think (and dig my spooky graphics)

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification system has proven to be enormously successful at pushing commercial buildings to reduce their environmental footprint. However the New York Times featured an important story on the under-performance of some of these buildings and has just published an opinion piece by Alec Applebaum in which he suggests that governments add-long term energy management initiatives to a LEED building in order to keep the project from “going gray after its grand opening.” Is the LEED system dropping the ball on energy efficiency?

The USGBC is a consensus-based membership organization and has developed a broad array of certifications for almost any kind of building, including entire neighborhoods. To its credit the USGBC has been very adaptive in its twelve years developing the LEED system. Many oversights, vagaries, and priorities have been addressed by LEED, which is now on version 3.0. One of newest changes is that a building needs to report annual energy use and compare it with the designed energy use. According to a USGBC study, approximately half of all certified buildings would not even make Energy Star. Currently there is no penalty (such as a revocation of the certification) for buildings that miss their projected energy targets. Mr. Applebaum would like to see an aggressive incentive program for buildings to go beyond a basic LEED certification, a baseline that is relatively easy for many projects. We fully agree.

What Mr. Applebaum overlooked in his piece, though, are options within the LEED system itself that encourages ongoing energy efficiency. The system is flexible so that design teams can find the best options for their specific projects. There are some basic requirements supported by a menu of options to get to certain levels of certification. This provides a design team with a lot of latitude to “cherry pick” points that are cheaper or easier, but ignore some that may be a larger initial investment but can have significant energy savings and payback in a short time.

When it comes to energy, for instance, two available options are enhanced commissioning and measurement and verification. These two credits have been proven to be the greatest energy-saving measures with the best payback in a building, but projects often balk at pursuing them. When a design team is “point chasing” for certification, the project often fails to meet expectations. The responsibility is on the project team to take integrated environmental design to heart throughout the entire process. The LEED system can only be as good as those who use it.

What do you think is the cause for buildings to not live up to their promised energy performance? What should be done to ensure that our buildings use less energy long after the plaque goes on?

Ask Your Landlord About Their Green Property Management Credentials

2010-05-12T21:56:00.003-06:00

Here is a new angle to consider when it come to green building: Property Managers.

Chris Thorman from Software Advise explains:

The next time you’re searching for a rental property, throw out this question to your potential landlord and gauge their reaction: “What are your green credentials?”

The response you get probably will range from a quizzical look to a mumbled sentence about switching to new light bulbs. The reality is, sustainable practices haven’t caught on as quickly in property management as in other industries.

Fortunately, there is a growing trend towards certifying “green” property managers and it’s being led by organizations such as the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the National Affordable Housing Management Association (NAHMA) and National Apartment Association Education Institute (NAAEI). NAR offers a property management track within its Green Designation and NAHMA and NAAEI jointly offer the Credential for Green Property Management. Both programs are designed to increase knowledge of sustainable practices among property managers.

Let’s delve deeper into what these credentials entail; why green property management is important; and what the future of green property management looks like. Read more...

(It's pretty cool that a software company is working at creating dialog for green building, their last post was on LED bulbs replacing those horrible florescent tubes, check out the results of their survey.- Andrew)

Want Less

2010-04-23T12:00:00.005-06:00

I pity the fool who always needs more....

Earthday hangover

2010-04-22T21:47:00.004-06:00

Ok we partied: yea we live on a planet that not only supports life but life that is intelligent enough to celebrate this fact once every revolution. Many green webblogs are bemoaning the commercial and short attention effect that has become Earth Day- I couldn’t agree more. Every year is going to be a little more alarming when it comes to environmental news so this reflection as far as an anniversary is important for no other reason than as a sharp reminder that it is not going to get any easier soon, so buck up.

Good news!

We’ll I am excited to announce that the website toponlineengineeringdegree.com named the sustainable line blog #15 in their top fifty green building blogs. Of course few have heard of them and frankly I don’t know why they heard of me but I think a hyperlink to the list is in order. A grateful thank you Top Online Engineering Degree.

Inhabitat asked it’s writers to say what they will do on Earth Day so I’ll share my contribution:

Over 422 planets have been discovered so far and not one of them has a day named for them (as far as we know). Earth is probably feeling a little smug. I’ll be spending Earth Day at a USGBC conference in Denver, CO and taking a tour of the first and only LEED state capital in the US. With notepad in hand I’ll get a report out to all of you on how they did it. I am grateful to see so much enthusiasm about sustainable living and building in the Rocky Mountain region, but it is certainly not enough. I want to see some real action, discipline, and cooperation to pull us out of this ditch. Time to get everyone on board, we are going to live more lightly on this enduring but fragile ride!

Are LED Fluorescent Tubes Ready for Prime Time?

2010-04-20T19:16:00.004-06:00

Here is another great analysis by Houston Neil:

Light emitting diode (LED) fluorescent tubes are all the rage in the lighting market. The technology promises to be more energy efficient, less environmentally harmful and more economical than traditional fluorescent tube lighting. Regardless, there is a lot of debate over whether they are ready for widespread commercial use.

We recently came across this very debate being held in a LinkedIn electrical construction group. It was a heated thread with two electrical contractors hashing out the pros and cons of using LED fluorescent tubes. To continue our series of articles on “green” construction, we thought we’d tackle the issue ourselves. So here we present our findings on LED fluorescent tubes.

First, We Want to Hear from You
Before delving into the details, we want to hear from you. We’re hosting a short survey on LED fluorescent tubes vs traditional fluorescent tubes. We’ll be posting our results back here next week. Voice your opinion; take our survey here:

Take the survey here

It’s a (green) blog’s world

2010-04-01T14:06:00.004-06:00

Don’t believe everything you read. We have heard that saying for a while now regarding the internet. Print media may be suffering but the irony is that there are more readers and things to read than ever. We are brimming with information, and ideas, and “mashups” beyond control.

Web 2.0 is figuring out how to get all those words, ideas, stories, images, and musings to the people who want them and ignore the rest. Kind of like a mob rule for messaging. If the media was the elitists then blogs and twitter are the agitators. What the heck does this have to do with green building? As it turns out the folks who design and build often have a lot of ideas too, and as the industry lunges forward a lot of those ideas are going to be put forward as fact. The filtering mechanism will be the “green building mob”. We’ll give those ideas thumbs up, thumbs down or maybe just a thumb in our collective mouth. This has a great effect on how building actually happens.

Here are two ground rules:

If you celebrate mediocre building, then your building efforts will remain mediocre.

“If you have to make compromises in your design then you have not asked the right questions” -Amory Lovins

My long held belief has been that unbiased and engaged information based on building science and smart design will be of invaluable benefit to the building industry. This begins with a clear and direct dialog which speaks directly to the why, what, and how of sustainable and adaptive building. Ok, you heard all this from me before, so what does this mean in the real world?

I will be a regular contributor to a couple of websites that have moved the conversation on good green design into the public with great success. Inhabitat for the last five years has aggressively addressed how important green design is. As much a celebration as exploration, Inhabitat is the leading voice on investigating the world of sustainable living. The architecture magazine eVolo is the other site to which I look forward to adding regular contributions. Their focus is on the future of sustainable architecture and development, from the very solid to the way out. (Thank you Michael, Grant, and Bruno for the support)

Pretty cool stuff and I am always excited to say that I can do this entirely powered by the sun. The real limit is not our budget, our technology, or our time- the true issue is our commitment. My contribution to this commitment is small, but with you, and an entire community things happen. For now I will write about what I believe is the real thing for what I know is a dapper readership, and forget to use commas.

FREE Green Building Seminar

2010-04-01T14:01:00.003-06:00

My favorite non-profit, the Northern Colorado Renewable Energy Society, is hosting a free morning seminar on Sustainable Building. The agenda will include a discussion on the principals of sustainable design, presentations by two of Colorado’s premier green developers, a primer on solar power for homes, and the central role energy audits play in the housing industry.

The sustainable building movement may conjure images of green materials, solar panels, and exotic equipment. What green building really promises are buildings that are healthy, durable and adaptable, using nominal amounts of energy supplied by renewable resources, and are a harmonious contribution to a community. This engaging seminar will be focused on the viability and practicality of bringing these building practices to our region.

This FREE half day seminar will be held at the Pulliam Building, 545 N. Cleveland Ave, downtown Loveland on April 10^th, 8:30am-noon. Refreshments will be served in the morning. To RSVP, request the itinerary, and for any questions please contact info@ncres.org (me) or Scott Peters at (970)203-9456. Please consider coming to NCRES monthly presentation at Odell Brewery on the second Tuesday of the month 7pm.

The future of energy is about looking up

2010-03-15T17:47:00.001-06:00

There are two ways to look at how we are going to power our modern lifestyle. Look down or look up. I mean this quite literally. The fierce conversation revolving around clean coal, nuclear, solar, and wind can be better understood by where you look. When you use electrons, they may seem the same at the plug but can have a very different path they traveled to get there.

For the last 150 years we have been looking into the ground to source the power we need to energize our machines. We dig for coal, put it in a furnace and spin turbines for electrons. Natural gas does the same. Nuclear power came along and it promised abundant electrons as long as we looked past its pollution. Uranium from the ground is processed into a much more radioactive product that we can’t put back into the ground again. Hydropower has shown to be useful up to a point, but that point was realized decades ago.

The next decade will ask us if we are finally willing to look up. The sun has been a central topic about how to relieve ourselves from our current dirty power. Solar is a tricky force to negotiate with. Wind and sun comes and goes as they please, with some predictability but without consistency. We have used electricity for a few generations now to successfully sever our relationship with the lack of consistency of nature. Renegotiation with nature will be the only solution in the long run to keep our fires from changing the chemistry of our atmosphere into something that becomes much more unpredictable.

Looking down we see our past. What we are burning now is the fossilized and condensed form of solar power. Natural gas and coal result from plants capturing the sun and turning that energy into sugars. Those surgers over time have condensed and fossilized into hydrocarbons. Burning hydrocarbons is cheap but ridiculously inefficient from the point of view of energy expended and increasingly polluting. Most of our infrastructure has been build around this minable energy. (The exception is geothermal energy which comes from radioactive decay.)

This inefficiency in how we use our energy is easy to calculate. Take a regular light bulb and add all the energy it took to get coal from the ground to the actual percentage of electrons that made light for you to read. The amount of usable energy is 2.5 percent. This number is so low that there must be an error somewhere along the way, but the real culprit is that we did not build our systems with the idea of entropy in the equation. We made up the difference by putting more energy into the system, and moving the energy production further away so fewer people could see it.

Looking up we see the force that make all these electrons happen in the first place. We receive solar power in three immediate forms- thermal, radiation, and wind. Ways to turn these into viable energy sources require a host of technologies, not just one magic bullet. It is tricky to get this power to be usable when we want it and where we want it.

When you are looking up you may have to squint. It is not an easy prospect to renew our infrastructure and lifestyle to harness this truly infinite and extraordinary clean form of electrons. The electrons we produce will have to do more for us than they do now. Efficiency, distributed production, energy storage, smart grids and buildings are just the start of what our future looks like. We will need to integrate our transportation, food and housing with our new forms of energy production. Looking up is the only way to see our future.

Green Building with the Naked Eye Video

2010-03-10T15:06:00.004-07:00

A video on Green Building With the Naked Eye. My friend John Fassler and I did a great job eating up the clock talking about the basics on green building. Take a look. (you may have to down load a driver to see it, but its worth it)

This was presented by Northern Colorado Renewable Energy Society and produced by Colorado State University Extended Studies.

Confessions of a Green Builder

2010-03-04T15:50:00.006-07:00

Twelve years ago I set out in designing and building an addition to my off grid house and a workshop. After a lot of thought about design, cost, and implementation I now realized I made a mistake. Well, a few. The largest mistake was not fully appreciating how a building worked. I am typing this newsletter in that house right now, looking over a snowy morning where 9 degrees Fahrenheit seems just about right. I am comfortable, have a great view, and am in need for some coffee. The reason I am comfortable is that I put a log in the fireplace every few hours to keep the place heated. For you romantics out there, relax. Living in the Colorado wilderness off the grid in front of a fire on a chilly morning is great. Only after 15 years you would be interested in using less firewood to do the job.

Here is what I thought. R19 fiberglass seemed like a lot of insulation. I framed my walls out with 2x6 lumber and got smart by putting it on 24 inch centers. This saved me materials and reduced thermal bridging. That is where my thinking stopped since I had really did not understand how a good wall system worked. The shell of a building is also ironically its heart. Everything that makes a home work is dependent on the walls, roof and ceiling working well together. In my case this is what I didn't take seriously:

1. Seal all those holes where the wires run between studs with expanding foam

2. Caulk where outside sheathing meets the floor and ceiling and caulked where the drywall meets these transition points on the other side

3. Made sure every little bit of wall cavity was insulated, especially behind the wires, and at the back of electrical boxes

4. Filled every opening to the attic or crawlspace with a hard facing

5. Seal corners

6. Avoid the use fiberglass

7. Connect the roof, wall and foundation air barrier

8. Install foam panels underneath the siding

I'll let Dr. Joe Lstiburek take it from here http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/superinsulation-cant-work-if-windows-leak

Incredibly boring stuff I admit (although Dr. Joe certainly isn't), but the details make the difference. Like a certain recall from a certain company, we may well be recalling all the homes that did not get built with the details taken care of. "Cash for caulkers"may just be the nudge (just avoid the temptation to mindlessly swap out windows, another newsletter). After you build or retrofit like this then all of a sudden you can control your energy, allergies and some real money.

My other major mistake is in not understanding how much energy it takes to do a simple task like moving air. Smart was putting in a large thermal mass to regulate heat in the home. Not so smart was using passive approaches and forced air to move heat to and from that thermal mass. The science of moving energy from one place to another is that it takes 3 times as much force to move air than it does fluid. I did not put tubing under the floor to heat it up, instead I rely on ducts. Living off the grid means that I just wasted a lot of energy and potential by using a poor heat distribution system.

In the summer I installed operable windows built to the afternoon prevailing winds, which was brilliant if only for a couple months in the year. Dumb was that the cool heavy air at night comes sliding down the hill and I installed only a small operable window to let that lovely air in. Night cooling is a perfect fit for many of us but we need to make it work.

My hybrid, earthship workshop has skylights for heat and lighting. I unfortunately placed them on the lower portion of the roof and don't get the heat and light where I need it. In my house I learned to install the two modestly sized skylights high up so sunlight reflects off the wall an fills the main room all day with lovely indirect light that does not over heat. That was a lesson learned on time.

I can overcome all these problems with energy sucking motors and plenty of propane, but with a little more insight into how I was designing to the land and how energy moves through a house I would be much more ahead of the game. So it's time to get busy. One inch of foam board around the house exterior, air sealing, tubing retrofitted in the floor hooked up to a solar thermal panel, and larger opening on the uphill side of the house.

Your building can be smart too. I am in business to bring not just my hard learned lessons, but the entire industries to your building project. We learned whole lot in just the last decade, but the problem is many building professionals have not kept pace with this knowledge or have become so specialized the greater function of the building can get lost. If you are dependent on out-of-date building information or inappropriate systems then you will have big problems baked into the cake. If you put the proper forethought into the way the building is put together your pay back is not just in lowered energy bills, but health, durability and adaptability. I know you heard this before, now it's time to make this a reality. After all, the deliberate life is informed by a deliberate space.

Time for some coffee and another log.

The Coming Renaissance of Electrical Contracting

2010-02-10T14:55:00.005-07:00

This is a guest post by Houston Neal, a construction software adviser.

While I do not sponsor any particular product this post is very useful for green building professionals.

In the next ten to twenty years, “electrical contractor” will no longer be a suitable job title for electricians. They will transition into “energy contractors” to support the fast-growing green construction market.

We see this as a coming renaissance in electrical contracting. There has been a revival of interest in the electrical trade as home owners and corporations adopt alternative methods (e.g. solar, wind, etc) to power buildings. What’s driving this? Federal incentives, lower material costs and savings from reduced energy spending. Read more.....

Hate Mail?

2010-02-10T14:15:00.003-07:00

This was in my email IN BOX from saleready@______

if solor and wind was so hot why did it fall apart back in 70 we were all going to get rich and change the world get treal natural gas coal and oil are real. the waist material your putting on roofs and battery storage will be indesposable . Theirs always someome making money on our childrens backs, I bet you a Obama supporter.

So to answer the question. Yes, I did vote and do support President Obama. I do sypathize with the writer as I can't spell too good either.

Pink is not the new Green

2010-01-26T12:30:00.005-07:00

This interesting add has shown up at our local bus stops to happily coincide with a frigid winter. As you can tell our pink friend is reminding us that your local utility wants you to turn that thermostat down and put on a sweater, and like it. If I had to guess she may be Jimmy Carters granddaughter or niece. She clearly came ready with her winter gear, like a hello kitty collector all grown up.

She triumphantly is fighting those high heating cost by taking the logical step of turning the thermostat down to the point where her refrigerator is in equilibrium with her living room. Her perkiness belies the fact this add breaks the cardinal rules of messaging- Don’t Suffer. Amory Lovins, director of the Rocky Mountain Institute has been appealing to us for years that saving energy “doesn’t mean having warm beer and cold showers”. I live off the grid and indeed enjoy many cold beers and the occasional warm shower. Interestingly two utility consumer relations personnel recently indicated to me that comfort is almost never why they get calls.

Somebody gave the utilities department some money to blatantly ignore the obvious in green messaging and as a result just made my job a wee bit more difficult. It is fun to make fun of our local utility. They have struggled for a number of years to get beyond a bureaucratic and insular approach to helping their clients (us) save energy and promote the energy savings industry. Not being effective is one thing, equating energy savings with suffering is quite another.

Naughty utilities now go sit in the corner until you behave.

It is all about the Av’er-ij

2010-01-08T13:10:00.005-07:00

Average is a common concept easily understood by most people. Average is how we understand global warming to occur. Take all the measurements in a particular place for a year, add them all up and then divide by the number of measurements. Now take many locations yearly measurement, add them up, then divide, and here is your average global temperature. Do this for a while and then you can see a trend. Either the global average temperature goes down, goes up, or stays the same. Our planet’s is going up, on average. A…v…e...r...a...g...e… with a “rij” at the end. So if you live in say Las Vegas, and it seems to be a little cooler at times then you need to actually look at the entire yearly temperature median, keeping in mind that this is only one measurement among many thousands of locations.

This is very linear thinking. Now for something a little less linear. Because the Earth’s atmosphere temperature is trending higher, on average, things change. Call it global weirding (Thomas Friedman’s phrase). If oceans contain more heat that changes how currents move and give off h2o and effect winds. This is showing to have a temporary cooling effect in some regions. Some places will get cooler, some warmer, some will stay the same, on average, for a certain amount of time. Most places are getting warmer. You may wonder “how”, and a lot of folks are working on that, but the “what” is as easy as reading a thermostat. At least reading one over and over again in thousands of locations for years.

An example of how much faith is put into averages look at the Down Jones Industrial Average. As you know, many of those who question global warming depend on the measurement of just a handful of companies to tell them how their own money is doing at the moment. Then they follow the average trend to predict the future. If they are willing to make huge bets with their money in the market then they should be ready to not bet against a warming globe. Global temperature measurements are a lot more accurate than the DOW at telling us where we are and where we are headed.

I wrote this post in response to a linked-in chat room "what if Global Warming is a hoax". I also learned that they really don't like Mr. Gore, or apparently the scientific method.

Year of the Energy Audit

2010-01-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

Your government wants you to save energy and they are getting ready to help you do it. The buzz from Washington is a "Cash for Caulkers" program that puts your home front and center. Nobody knows what this really means yet, but you can bet the Energy Audit will be a central part of it. Many local utilities and cities have already made energy audits available. A home energy audit provides an invaluable diagnostic of the two largest energy and comfort issues of a home: air infiltration through the air barrier and heat loss/ heat gain through insulation. The homes shell and its insulation are very important, but for years now have not been properly regarded. Things have changed and with building science and good diagnostic tools we can find where your home is not performing so we can then do something about it.

Energy Audits will be free (or close to it) for almost anybody in the states in the coming year. You call up your local utility or municipality and they will happily send out a RESNET or BPI certified energy auditor to your home. The auditor will schlep out a big fan which slips into an adjustable frame that fills the front door. After turning off pilot lights and sealing appliance exhaust vents on goes the blower. In short order they will adjust the fan to create a precise pressure difference (50 pascals as the control) between the outside and inside. Now the science begins. What they are looking for is the volume of air entering your home through all the hidden holes in the outside walls. They measure the air changes per hour and use this to tell how leaky your home really is. Congratulations you now have a number. This number doesn't mean much though until you find those leaks.

This is where building science meets building sleuth. A well trained auditor has a lot of tricks on how to find those holes, missing or inadequate insulation, and other building envelope problems. First thing they need to do is ask about your experience of comfort in the home. A cold or hot room, a noisy furnace, drafty stair wells are all signs of the hidden life of wasted energy. Your experience of discomfort is a great indicator of what the problems are. A good building scientist knows what to test for but a good energy sleuth knows how to extract the critical information. The auditor then will walk through the home looking for air infiltration building issues. The big problems are usually where you never are, the attic and basement or crawl space. If you set the blower to blow air into the home and stick your head into the attic you may see insulation dance around the holes in the ceiling or top of the walls. A smoke stick in the basement can quickly show the rim joist leaking air, even if they are insulated. Electrical outlets are a prime candidate for cold air to make a break for it.

This is good news. "Cash for Caulkers" implies that we are not just testing a home but doing something about it. Foam, caulk and air barriers are extraordinary but humble guards on the quest for energy efficiency and comfort. Now that the crime scene is laid out they go into attics, crawl spaces, electrical boxes and hidden corners across America to protect you from high energy prices and according to some politicians, "To stop the terrorists" (ok, whatever it takes.) A good energy auditor is now not just a scientist and sleuth but also the judge- laying out a sentence to ban the infiltration of air into the home.

We have a lot riding on the energy auditor and rely on their professionalism. Now that you get the service for free a new dynamic is in the works. A good audit takes at the very least an hour and a half and provides a thorough unbiased report of the findings. If the auditor is suddenly burdened with a lot of jobs and the folks getting the audit have no financial commitment.... well you can see where I am going. The value of the information is the basis for everything that comes next. A thorough audit is very useful, a poorly done audit can simply steer you in the wrong direction and waste serious money in the process.

How do you know that you're getting the real deal? The audit process does not just give you the somewhat esoteric air exchange number but they tell you what it means in regards to your homes general performance. They keep the blower on and snoop around the corners, attic, and even the crawl space. They seek out complicated framing and check its thermal properties. They look at the duct work, combustion air, water heater, building penetrations, insulation, etc. They ask questions and examine your energy bill. If you have a freezer in the garage and a hot tub in back, they give you the "what for". Safety and energy do not always run parallel so they provide a good energy saving plan without leaving you with bad air or a poorly running system. They do not give you expensive solutions right off the bat and they prioritize the work to be done.

When it come to the work to be done keep an open mind. If the auditor's company also does the retrofits take a serious look at what the real priorities are. New windows and a new furnace do not happen before you seal and insulate. The ethicality of an audit can be seriously compromised if the company also wants to do the work. I can lie about your buildings performance as easily as I can tell the truth with a thermal imagining camera (but a good thermal camera operator can "see" into the wall). When it come to pay back and comfort you cannot beat the caulk gun, foam and quality insulation.

As the free Energy Audits rolls out I would like to see two things. A good customer feedback system and internal auditing system should be required to see that the auditors are doing a good job and not steering the owner to overly expensive installation work (this is already a part of the RESNET standard). Just as important is not having the municipalities and energy companies simply contract out the work but create a voucher system that allows more energy audit teams to get a chance to show you that they can do a great job helping you lower your energy bills and improve your quality of life. With good feed back in a competitive market these audits will only get better. Just giving them away to a few select auditing providers could keep the maket for efficency from realizing it true potential.

Maybe you already heard the news about our president recently calling insulation "sexy". President Obama exclaimed "Here's what's sexy about it: saving money. Think about it this way: If you haven't upgraded your home yet, it's not just heat or cool air that's escaping- its energy and money that you are wasting. If you saw $20 bills just sort of floating through the window up into the atmosphere, you'd try to figure out how you were going to keep that. But that's exactly what's happening because of the lack of efficiency in our buildings."

Energy Auditor, patriot.

Cabbage Patch Kids, Tickle-Me-Elmo, Wii, and now TED

2009-12-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

Lines are forming, preorders being filled, sold out signs are on web sites. The great “must haves” for the holiday season have a new member, TED. An acronym for The Energy Device, it is a real-time gauge of your home’s energy use. For a few years now, TED has been used by professionals and curious home owners to measure and greatly reduce home electricity consumption. By measuring at a glance and in real-time energy usage (in KW), you can quickly zero in on what is wasting energy, when, and how much it costs.

So why is this meter so hot now? The makers of the T.E.D. have come out with a new model, the T.E.D. 5000, and have teamed up with Google to provide this information to you anywhere, at any time, on any device that has web access. This is very cool stuff because the all the graphs, energy costs, as well as your current electrical usage can be critical if you really want to tame your energy consumption. This $240 energy meter works by hooking up inductive sensors and a sending unit at your electrical box (this may require a professional electrician). A display inside tells you the measurements and is connected to a Google server through the home’s internet connection. You now have access to a wealth of information about your energy consumption and cost, both current, past and projected on your home computer or even your iPhone or Android.

We are going to pour billions of dollars into “smart grids,” but those smart grids get pretty dim witted when they enter your house. All those solar panels and wind turbines will only make a dent in the power consumption predicted in the coming decades if conservation does not play a significant role. Think of it as “nega-watts”. A Colorado State University study of local high school’s energy consumption has demonstrated that energy awareness and conservation are just as effective as green building. It turns out the smartest meter is you. How much does that new TV use, or that old freezer, or all of your power adapters? Now that you know, you can switch them off or change them out and see your power consumption numbers drop dramatically. Hidden devices like fans, lights, heaters, pumps, etc, that are on needlessly can be detected.

Ok, all you environmentalists. Here’s the deal. Your home is your own biggest single contributor to greenhouse gas (20% of all GHG in fact). Electricity production is the reason this is so. Currently the electricity that enters your house is the dirtiest form of energy we use, and reducing it is the easiest and cheapest way to affect your contribution to our collective climate change. With this in mind, as far as gifts go this year, the TED 5000 with Google’s PowerMeter software (if you can find one) should be at the top of your wish list.

The Rebate Tide

2009-12-16T11:33:00.003-07:00

Rebates and tax incentives have been flowing like a tide. High tide for the solar industry in Colorado has just happened. Everybody wants it, and heck the price can be reduced up to half with rebates. The payback is not great but those panels look pretty cool on a roof. Although it’s complicated in Colorado, basically voter amendment 37 requires the private power service providers allow for a small percentage of a renewable portfolio for roof mounted solar power. They got permission to raise everybody’s rate and use that money to subsidize the solar panels. This effectively lets the wealthier solar lovers get half off and forces poorer rate payers to help pick up the tab. Furthermore a clean energy portfolio is out of sequence with what is generally considered a better initial investment, demand side control. None the less the amendment got the job done, solar on roofs.

Now the tide is rolling back as the private energy suppliers have fulfilled their mandate and a lot of solar companies will be left high and dry. The smart ones will expand their offerings by either cutting cost (by potentially doing shoddy work) or expanding their portfolio to include energy conservation, hence lowering the amount of solar needed. Another model has emerged that allows renting solar. This concept started in Africa and the Middle East in the nineties where companies rented a panel and battery to a family to provide basic power. Soon you can rent panels for your grid tied home in Colorado. This solves the lower income solar problem with proper government support, but still cannot address the problem of demand.

The next rebate tide is coming and this time energy audits and insulation will be in it. How will this market develop? Will the emerging green building companies flourish? And most importantly will we finally start to take the consumption of energy seriously? While I remain a bit skeptical I know we are pointing in the proper direction. A real change will require energy prices to reflect their true cost via a tax or cap or simply supply and demand. If the green building industry is properly mature by then we will be ready to lead the effort in adapting to a new energy economy.

Concrete Learns Some New Tricks

2009-12-13T15:19:00.003-07:00

First published on the GenGreen Bog.

We love concrete, maybe you don’t know it, but look around. It forms the basis of almost everything built. Think of it as liquid rock. Simply pour it into any shape you want so you can put whatever you want on top of it or underneath. We have been playing around with the stuff since Roman days, where they used it to move water and armies and erect buildings to show their dominance over nature. I have to tell you that my wife, whose Italian grandfather and aunt have made concrete for their entire lives, can make a mean batch. A couple thousand years and not too much has changed, from the concrete’s point of view at least.

Sure, we made it stronger and prettier over time but recently concrete has learned to do more with less. Cement which is the “glue” that binds all the aggregates together turns out to be the problem. Fly ash, a waste product of burning coal in power plants can replace up to 30% of the cement and actually improve the strength of concrete in some applications. Slag is another waste product, this time from the production of steel that also has been proven to effectively replace some of our old friend cement.

This is a big deal because the biggest problem with concrete is that its production puts at lot of carbon into the air. More specifically, portland cement is made from limestone (CaCO3) which you strip off the carbon (CO2) in coal fired furnaces to produce calcium oxide (CaCO). 5% of all CO2 emissions are from just the making of cement. Those coal fired furnaces (418 lbs. coal per ton of cement) can now be supplemented by burning biomass. Not all carbon is equal. If you mine it and it goes into the atmosphere then you are adding to the problem, if you use waste plant material that will simply decay, that carbon is already in the environment.

These are good tricks, but there are more. Concrete as it turns out not only releases CO2 in its production but over time reabsorbs some of it again. New formulas are being tested that will absorb a lot more, most famously an experiment on the new replacement bridge in the Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Maybe in time an even bigger chunk of carbon could be grabbed out of the sky.

Concrete is a big part of our urban landscape, it absorbs a lot of the heat of the day and makes our urban environment much hotter in the summer. This heat makes us turn up the ac, which uses a lot of energy, which ultimately makes it hotter still. New concrete formulas help alleviate this frustrating cycle. White concrete used for hardscapes reflects a lot more of the sun rather holding that heat, and porous concrete pavers can actually help cool an outdoor space by letting water evaporate.

The next trick is inside. Good engineering is now taking advantage of concrete’s ability to hold heat to make our building more energy efficient. By placing structural walls inside the building’s envelope concrete can regulate indoor temperatures by absorbing heat when the building warms up and releasing it later, when the heat is needed.

The Gift That Stops Taking

2009-12-01T14:11:00.008-07:00

Welcome to the holiday gift guide from the sustainable line. Rather than soap boxing about how you should stop buying more stuff (want less) or to start giving your money to well-deserving charities, I thought that this holiday season we could celebrate by buying more that uses less. First, of course, don't buy gifts that are cheap crap. A lot of it is on sale and most of it plugs in and wastes a lot of energy before the recipient has to throw it away. Think savings for the gift's lifetime.

For your romantic friends and loved ones, dimmable compact florescent bulbs are a perfect fit. Dimmable CFL's have gotten both pretty good at dimming and are now a great bargain, many can be had for less than $5. Electronics are still a big hit so the new LED bulbs (not the cheap ones, but those with the big heat sink) are now at your local big box hardware store and will make you look like you are up on the new trends. They work best as spot lights. Make sure to compare the lumens, not the "watt equivalent" on the box. Shell out at least $30 for one of these lifetime investments. Test some out by getting a string of LED holiday lights. By the way, the CFLs are electronic too, and really outlast incandescents by a long stretch, so toss those old grandpa bulbs in the trash (it's ok, really, right into the waste basket). Electronics are always a big hit, saving electrons should be too.

Avoid not only a lump of coal in the stocking but also a lot of coal at your power plant by giving a Kill-A-Watt meter. At less than $25 this has got to be the best bargain out there and hours of fun when your recipient finds out how much energy those cheap-crap-that-plugs-in gifts they received use from the house plug.

To show you really care the hot item this year is the T.E.D. 5000 Energy Meter linked with Google's PowerMeter software. It is flying off the shelves at $230 because now anyone can measure their home's energy usage and cost, trends and other data from anywhere, including their mobile phone. You better get it soon before they all disappear. Something an entire family can enjoy.

The Smart Power Strip gives your office mate an easy way to control that wasted electricity. The strip allows them to plug in devices that should never turn off alongside devices that should turn off automatically when they shut down their computer (or other central technology), and start up when they turn it on. This makes energy saving effortless for only $30. Laptops that replace desktop computers are an easy decision to make when you are thinking about that special someone. They don't even have to know you bought it just to help them save a lot of energy.

The $120 eco-fan is a nifty gadget that uses the heat from a wood stove to spin its blades and distribute that hot air throughout the house. The hotter it gets the more air it moves (I do use a wood stove a lot, hint).

One of the best ways to make someone take notice of you is in the shower, so why not give them a super efficient showerhead that actually works better than that old wasteful one they use now. The line of Oxygenics shower heads turn the water drops into little bubbles that feel like a lot more water is coming out. These showerheads use only 1.5 gallons a minute and start at $25 for the basic model. You also just saved them a big chunk of change from all that heating of water.

If you are the kind of person who likes to give the most attention getting gifts in your circle then the dual flush toilet conversion kitwill fit the bill. This kit is under $30 and will save from 30-65% of a home's toilet water. The manufacturer claims that it works on all toilets and the conversion is very do-it-yourself. Of course you can spring for a new super low flow dual flush toilet that uses less than a gallon per flush on average. They run at about $200 before installation.

For those with kids or allergies a thoughtful gift of a home air test will be well received. By setting up a $120 testing unit in the home and sending it to a lab they can get a report on the VOC levels, mold, and other contaminants in the home. Winter indoor air quality can be really bad but you can show that you care with a test like this. Room air filters are mostly pseudo science, so fix the problem with awhole house heat recovery ventilator with a hepa filter. A HRV is $850 before installation but asthma is a lot more expensive.

Here are a few other ideas that are not necessarily about the home but are really environmentally aware. Now that gift cards are so useful, don't get one from the same old retailer, see if your independent shop has one too. What about a gift card for the local used book store, a shop like Recycled Cycles for a reconditioned bike, or your local building material reuse center like ReSource? These independents are following the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) with your support and have what the big box stores don't, a promising future for all of us. So go ahead and buy stuff guilt free because you are really helping save electricity, water, and our local economy.

Generosity is the virtue that produces peace,

Andrew Michler, LEED AP, MIGP

Please Note:

Under the new FCC rules the author is to report any compensation received for the mentioning of products or services. Unfortunately the author received no compensation or samples of the mentioned products.

Green Bling

2009-11-13T17:39:00.002-07:00

Originally published on GenGreen.

When it come to the green marketplace there is a lot of sexy stuff: clothing, creams, computers, cars, and of course building products. Just about everything you can buy seems to have a green variation.

Marketers and designers have pounced on our want to do less damage to the planet by having us buy more stuff. That’s their job, but our job is to make sure we are not making purchases for the wrong reason. Green Bling is the environmental badge hanging on a product when that product, at best, takes a baby step to reducing it environmental foot print but shouts out its environmentalism. You have to cringe at a full sized GM SUV rolling past you with hybrid stickers and little green leaves all over it. All for two lousy gallons of saved gas per mile. Those $400 set of organic cotton bed sheets look pretty odd in a bedroom full of nylon carpet (a VOC emitter and sponge). That tote bag isn’t going to make that much difference relative to how you are taking your groceries home.

Looking good isn’t enough. An external hard drive clad in bamboo isn’t green unless it uses a lot less energy too. Your super non-VOC paint does little good if your furniture is new, cheap, and full of urea formaldehyde glues. Your new LCD TV that just replaced your 20 year old one is not nearly as energy efficient as replacing your 20 year old refrigerator.

Then there is the home itself. A house with super expensive countertops made from recycled paper is fine, unless you go to the mechanical room and find the furnace to be a cheap minimally efficient affair. Solar panels on the roof are really Green Bling when the insulation in the walls are inadequate. It’s that natural, green certified, architecturally envisioned home that has lots of glass all in the wrong places. The ultimate Green Bling to me is the green built trophy vacation house. Ouch.

I am not saying that buying all these things are the wrong thing to do, only that you should buy the sexy stuff only after you invested in the basics. When you do that you have every reason to brag when you are looking so good.

Your Third Skin

2009-11-09T11:15:00.002-07:00

A house essentially acts as your third skin. The second skin is your clothing and the first skin is what you buy all those moisturizers for. Comfort and protection is the name of the game. Your own skin is excellent at this. Your clothing is not so bad and when it doesn't work you can put on something else. Weirdly, to me, your third skin often does a miserable job at keeping you comfortable. The unfortunate thing is you're willing to pay so much for it none the less.

Most houses are dysfunctional. This bad deal is brought to you by a housing industry that profits from building homes with the assumption that you don't know better. They say they will give you oak floors, a big entrance and granite counters and you in return will ignore the larger point of owning one of their buildings; namely your well being and comfort. This is not the definition of a home, but rather a definition of a product. It seems a little crazy that we have trusted the housing industry for so long when what we really did was compromise our health and financial well being. They offered you "upgrades" because they did not want or could not offer you a sound and functional building.

Our recent winter-like weather attests that comfort is not usually easy or cheap. A good home is comfortable by providing us with moderate temperature swings, control of our environment, and abundant light and fresh air. This usually has been attempted not by good design, but by buttons and switches. The switches are connected to equipment often hashed together without the thought of how they will actually work with the house. You pay a lot for comfort but do you really get value? Your comfort is based on a monthly, subsidized, complex and often poorly functioning bundle of building components. They battle each other like siblings over the last cookie. Your furnace may be too big and make the home's temperature swing back and forth like a drunken bachelor. Maybe it's because your home leaks so much air, or you put fancy pants windows where they have no good sense to be. Basements are basket cases in which all comfort is a theoretical notion. An older house means towels under the door, three more layers of threads, and hopefully a little less weather so you may be able to handle the emotion of opening this month's heating bill.

So you get smart and hire a solar tube guy, insulation guy, furnace guy, ac guy, windows guy, or a solar electric guy. (My apologies to those who do their work well and thoughtfully. You are excused from the rest of this paragraph.) I want to talk about what I see in the field that each of these folks did for your comfort but achieved just the opposite. Solar tube guys need to insulate after they install. They can make life miserable and uncomfortable by leaving a gaping hole in the thermal envelop. Insulation installers may be the most important person on the job because just a small oversight adds to years of problems. They may be also the lowest paid and the least trained. Furnace and ac guys ignore the duct work quality at their client's peril. You don't see it but you get to live with an out-of-whack system. One more thing, they need to read and use the Manual-J and stop over-sizing your equipment. Some window replacers can smell a sucker a mile away and will put a new window on any problem. New windows look nice but do not often directly translate to comfort and energy savings.

Solar is an emotional purchase. How else do you explain a $30k system on a home that has an old furnace and refrigerator, gravity-vented water heater and little insulation? Our biggest embarrassment is that we deeply subsidize solar electricity which has the longest pay back, no added comfort, and simply feeds a greedy grid. I know, we are emotional beings, but I thought we wanted to save money too? I have seen too many expensive "feel good" mistakes that lead to higher bills, poor comfort, and shameless profits. My wife had a conversation with a solar installer who admitted as much. All the while your third skin is still in intensive care, feeding on gas lines, water lines and power lines.

What you need is a home that actually does what you pay it to do. Your hard earned dollars should reward you with a home that returns the favor by being healthy, comfortable, happy, and environmentally reasonable. I use the analogy of a car that needs repair. If it is leaking gas from the tank (air leaks) then don't put a turbo charger in it first (solar). If you get poor mileage (utility bills) then don't just start replacing equipment (windows), you need to get a diagnostic (energy audit). Seems simple but most home owners do not do this.

Before you go back to the returns aisle for a refund there is some good news. We now know why houses are so lousy and we can fix them. Many builders are not going to change their stripes so you cannot count on them, but what you can count on is a new industry of green builders, designers and consultants who are paving the way in shaping a third skin that can function almost as elegantly as your first skin. This is not easy stuff and is why it has been ignored for so long. The reason this newsletter is not full of all the joyous solutions that are available is twofold. First, if you have a problem the best step is to admit it, and second, each solution is based on the whole. We are not talking about swapping car parts, but rather improving the whole design.

Here is a solution. Baosol's services are developed to make your house work as a home. We think past walls, in terms of systems, and a balanced and methodical approach. This new way of thinking about buildings is a response to the great opportunities that are now available to develop the home you want and not leave you with a host of unintended consequences. People usually call when the problems have already manifested, but we can help improve the building performance at multiple levels before you get to that point. A home is an essential component of a quality life, the aim is not just to reduce the house's impact but improve its true function; a place that nurtures.

This effort is a long term goal, for you to be successful we have developed a consulting package that helps you get there. It starts with an $80 Green Homes Audit and uses that as a template to take you step by step through the recommendations at your own pace. This can be the best investment you make if you are remodeling, having quality or comfort issues, or want to make your home an integral part of a sustainable society. It's not about the stuff, it's about how all the stuff works together to make your house feel like home. I knew there would be some good news in this month's newsletter.

Blog ACTION Day: First the bad news……

2009-10-15T12:16:00.001-06:00

The buildings we use account for over 40% of all green house gasses. A recent study showed that due to the global recession total greenhouse gas emissions have gone down 1%, the only sector where they went up is from our buildings, nearly 2%. Homes, offices and factories play the biggest role in what is now by all intensive measures the teraforming of our planet. This teraforming event is obviously not on purpose but everyone seems to be running around with some massive plan to either re-teraform (geoengineering) or to reverse the process by slowing emissions.

The ideas for re-teraforming the earth include shading the planet with billions of reflective two foot wide satellites to a continuous injection of sulfates into the stratosphere. Soot that comes from our cars and factories also help cool the planet (really mask global warming). The sulfur and soot from volcanoes are understood to work similarly, so don’t be surprised when artificial volcanoes become a hot topic.

The slowing emissions folks have a grand imagination too. Sulfur-acid batteries the size of a football fields hold and distribute solar and wind farm’s excess energy. These farms will follow our freeways from coast to coast, while our desserts lay claim to hundreds of square miles of mirrors and tubes squeezing the sun’s energy into steam to run generators. Our coal plants become breeders of algae, soaking in all that carbon and squirting out oils we can run our transportation on.

Why is this bad news? Well you can’t be a part of it. You have to sit around and wait for someone else to figure it all out. You as useful as a dodo bird when the Europeans show up. Oh yes, you may also have a while to wait.

Now the good news…..

Technology will not save us. Every time we get clever and implement some great new idea we simply make more problems to solve. Come to think of it, maybe our economy is not based so much on consumerism but more on solving all the problems we created in the first place.

The good news is that right now your involvement and participation in reducing your harmful environmental impact is right in front of you. It’s your house (but you knew I’d say that). Remember 40% of ALL emissions are from buildings. It is relatively easy to cut you homes emissions in half. Even a new hybrid car can’t even come close to the environmental impact of an efficient house. As an engineer friend of mine says, think nega-watts. You are now the center of the solution, not waiting for the wizard behind the curtain pull a few levers and fill the sky with mirrors.

Bad Electrician!

2009-10-14T19:12:00.002-06:00

Is your electrician a Jack Ass?
That's better! (with another roll of r-30 on top)

As A Green Building Consultant I Will do Anything But…

2009-10-09T07:21:00.000-06:00

I will do just about anything to make green building happen. I will crawl on my hands and knees until your crawl space is insulated. I will get covered in fiberglass and sweat to help you value your attics r-value. I will help design your LEED platinum home. I will argue at the order desk until I get you just the right window. I will put it on my card. I will read LEED books until I become numb with numbers, and even the Manual J. I am not a morning person but I’ll get into town at 7am for my first meeting and stay till 9pm to make my last. I will give advice for free, but pay for it for myself. I will start a non for profit. I will wear work cloths all one week and pressed shirts all the next. I will write it, read it, drink to it, and sing it if requested. If I don’t know about the latest energy saving strategy I will find out who does. I will take the chance that there are others like me who can help out. I will take lead and then gladly follow. I will take great financial risk to do this better. One thing I have decided not to do just yet though is learn how to make a cappuccino.

The seven steps to sustainable building, Location and Site.

2009-10-02T17:07:00.004-06:00

Ideally, sustainable building is about setting priorities and moving to the next decision when the previous one has been adequately addressed. Simple as a concept, but often not a reality when you hear different green building folks chime in to say that they have the “green” solution for you. In this spirit, I have tried to boil down what I think of as the core principles that guide sustainable building and how they should be ranked in importance. This is for new and old buildings, large and small. Start at the first step and move your way up the decision chain, making connections between the steps all the time. You may notice that many of the goodies are near the top, which means we are not talking so much about the stuff but how the whole building is going to work. Maybe this would make a good board game, a rip off of Chutes and Ladders. A downloadable PDF is available here of the seven steps.

Step One begins with location. You have to live somewhere. That somewhere is usually inside. That inside is only one of the insides you want to be somewhere today. Those insides have a lot to do with the outside. We have been building our civilization bigger and wider for our convenience and pleasure, but any commuter knows that that pleasure is fleeting when they check the traffic report. Our view corridors and green belts wane. The beginning of sustainable building is to build closer to where you spend the rest of your time. The LEED system calls it community connectivity. Your work, your shopping, your parks and many other things are better simply when they are closer.

A good location is taking advantage of civilization by living in it. Pretending that you don’t and building neighborhoods in the middle of “nowhere” achieves neither a neighborhood nor “nowhere.” Connecting with the community means now you can ride your bike to work on a nice day. You can walk back from the bar. You can walk to your new friend’s place. Community connectivity is not just an esoteric green building point but a lifestyle, and ultimately an entire society.

Urban renewal, building reuse, neighborhood and community development all result from proper location. I have noticed that in the last year cities I have been to, Chicago, San Francisco, and Denver, all have very robust downtown apartment building projects. This indicates that demand for living in a denser environment, using less land and other resources, is once again being adopted by our nation.

Siting is where and how you place your building. The first thing to consider is reducing your environmental impact on a chosen site. Protecting water sheds, sensitive habitat, reducing roads and other hardscapes is the first consideration. Try to minimize land disturbance. I have long had the thought that when you find that special place to build, build next to it, not on top of it. After all, that special place is no longer there when you build on it.

Perhaps the biggest mistake that developers make is ignoring orientation. The value of a home and entire neighborhoods is deeply diminished when the lots and buildings are not adept at catching the sunshine. Poor orientation can cost a building upward of 30% in energy cost. That is a substantial number and almost utterly ignored by your local developer. When you look to buy a building this is one of the first things to look for. Good orientation does not only help keep the building cool in the summer and warm in the winter it also “future proofs” your investment. As solar technologies come into their own it would be obvious for you to be able to take advantage of them by having your roof properly facing the sunshine. Oh yeah, it’s cheaper than paying a gas and electric bill.

Siting has some very subtle aspects to it. Prevailing winds are good to capture in the summer and avoid in the winter. A wind rose is a localized chart of seasonal wind characteristics of a location that can help you understand your site. Noise, by way of traffic or other sources, can be addressed and avoided. Sight lines and views have long influenced a building’s siting, but remember those change when that tree grows up or your neighbor gets ready to “pop the top” (a turn of phrase that should perhaps be outlawed). Water runoff has a very real impact.

Before you place a building, sit on the land. Spend real time watching the environment. You will intuitively know where the best place to build will be. There are stories of people who spent years studying their land, the subtleness of the terrain, views, wind and light. They were looking for a way to best harmonize their living with the land they wanted to live upon. Perhaps they are a bit obsessive-compulsive or maybe indecisive but you can bet they have a better home as a result.

Ultimately you do not own land, you borrow it. Being stewards of this borrowed land and keeping it healthy and abundant is a generational effort. When you place your building thoughtfully you have the security of light, heat, cooling and air that will be free for the taking.

You know what. This can be complicated stuff. I am going sit down and ask some experts what they think. The Seven Steps to a Sustainable Building have 12 distinct subjects, so I’ll start with a conversation about each of these. Some, like energy efficiency, may require a few points of view. I’ll also have conversations with experts about integrated design, how to actually use a green building, how to make it happen financially and some other big thoughts. These recorded interviews will be available as an mp3 and CD series available early next year. Stay tuned to what will be a very interesting collection.

Think/Stop

2009-09-28T13:32:00.001-06:00

I just finished reading two things. The first is my latest issue of Eco-Structure Magazine, a perky piece of work with smart looking commercial buildings all with seemingly the same message “green building is great with daylight, recycled materials and some energy savings.” A lot of ‘what’ but not enough ‘how’, all in all not particularly helpful for my pursuit of new information, but I like the projects.

The one small article that caught my eye is about a study by the International Facility Management Association and Johnson Controls into the disconnect between people wanting to be green and not doing it at all. The study shows that in the past 12 months 71% of all respondents said that they were paying attention to energy efficiency, but the studies research shows that this is the second year in a row that energy efficiency investments are sliding and that many respondents reported they are actually did nothing to save energy. This is a national study, but it certainly cuts close to home. Energy efficiency may be the talk of the town but not on today’s to do list.

This brings me to the second thing I just finished which is the popular book by Thomas Friedman, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. If you haven’t read it, it is basically an accounting of our environmental train wreck, and America’s self absorption. He also gives us a glimpse into a sustainable future, but no bones about it, this is tough love. Friedman hits it on the mark when he proclaims that the political class is still “in their dumb-as-we-wanna-to-be, where we’re always No. one” in his latest NYT opinion piece. We are in fact just slipping further into the swamp of inefficiency and ineffectiveness. We seem to have convinced ourselves that we are becoming greener when in fact we are pointed in the opposite direction. Just because all the magazines, products, events, and politicians have green as their poster child doesn’t mean that that child isn’t going to bed hungry every night.

Don’t believe me. A recent report shows that America’s carbon output shrank this last year due to the recession by one percent, except that our buildings emissions grew by two. Bottom line: green thinking has not led to green action. The above mentioned report says that uncertainty in the economy, in policy and simply anticipation of more incentives are leading to this backslide. All fine excuses if one ignores the immediate and substantive gains from energy savings. Like money.

Hot Summer, Cool House

2009-09-22T15:21:00.004-06:00

This post was originally written for GenGreen, but you can never be too prepared for next years heat wave.

Not much is worse than a stuffy, over heated house in the summer time. You can’t sleep, you can’t move, you can’t think. Modern cities exist just as much because of air conditioning as they do because of the automobile. With A/C you can build the same house from coast to coast, from the Mexican border to a Canadian crossing—all you have to do is press a button and, presto, no more heat! It is easy and the equipment is relatively cheap, at least until the electric bill arrives.

A/C takes a lot of power. When I mean a lot, I mean that your utility is desperate to make enough energy with all those A/C units humming all afternoon. Your utility is paying dollars per kilowatt hour even though you are paying maybe a dime. They are cranking out a lot of carbon to boot. (Wind energy is at its lowest in the summer so “buying” wind power is not the solution.)

This is called the long tail pipe, when what you do at your home affects what goes into the air hundreds of miles away. With this in mind, not to mention the endless drone of an A/C and the monthly bill, let‘s look at other ways to keep cool.

First off, don’t build or buy a “stupid” house. In this case, a “stupid” house is one with BIG windows facing east and west (read Dude, tune your windows). Even with air conditioning you won’t keep cool, and indoor shades are like locking the doors when the burglar is already inside.

Keeping lights, computers and other heat producing products off can help keep your home cooler.

Ceiling fans are an obvious choice, just remember that they cool not by pushing hot air up but creating a breeze across your skin.

Next is investigating overhangs for the outside of your windows. This can get more involved but can make a big difference on the southern side.

Skylights are a big culprit so shading them also helps.

Think about shade plants for the east and west sides and a big tree or two on the south side, just don’t block all that sunshine in the winter time.

If you still need a button to press, here are a few options:

Evaporative coolers are very cost effective in low humidity areas. Coolerado is a new generation of evaporative coolers that uses a heat exchanger. (Night cooling works in low humidity areas too.)

A well sealed whole house fan gets rid of the built up hot air from the day and replaces it with cool evening air.

Take a peek into your attic and see if the insulation is at least 12 inches thick and uniform.

Air infiltration in the summer can take its toll too so hire an energy rater to test your house for air leaks.

If you are in a muggy climate and need air conditioning, look for a high SEER (seasonal energy efficiency rating) and, just as importantly, do not over size the unit for the space. The AC will never get enough air across its coil to remove the humidity.

Have an older unit checked for its refrigerant charge and condition. Your local utility may even do this for free.

Really cool, eco friendly stuff is out there (pun intended) like green roofs, ground source heat pumps, reflective barriers, low SRI (solar reflective index) roofing, and thermal mass implementation.

Last, but not least, relax and cool down with your favorite beer knowing that your long tail pipe just got a lot smaller.

Three Green Failures

2009-09-12T16:07:00.004-06:00

(Editor's note: At the advice of Andrew's attorney he has deleted the names of the involved parties in this blog posting. They will be referred to as a fruit.)

This is why I think we are failing as a society at developing a more environmentally benign infrastructure. We don’t know what we are doing wrong because we can’t see it. We can’t see it because it too complex. It is too complex because we are limited by our experience.

When I recommended a high efficiency furnace to a friend she was willing to invest a thousand dollars more for the upgrade. When I said that she needs to seal her crawlspace too, so that the duct work was effectively not outside the thermal envelope she said everything is fine as it is. The cost for do the sealing: $60. Even though it was just as important as the furnace upgrade she did not see the value. This happens all the time, everywhere. Her limited experience in building science kept her from not only making the right choices, but kept others from helping her too.

A year or so ago I approached the owner of the very famous, hyper green brewer Pomegranate with a proposal. They should work with their two neighbors who are interested in installing solar electricity and create a small energy district. He told me that they were not interested in installing solar panels at their facility. I was disappointed but understood. Nine months later Pomegranate announced that they were receiving grant money from the DOE to install solar panels in their parking lot. Now whether the owner of Pomegranate was lying to me or not is not the point. Their go it alone and not work with their neighbors is disastrous for creating a better energy infrastructure. They shamefully leverage the government’s money to look better, and hence market more beer. Why share in the accolades when they can be yours alone. They also the missed the true green movement- collaboration. They have developed an intense reputation in town for not communicating.

I recently had an awkward meeting with a woman from Guava, the group Star Fruit put together before he arrived in Washington. She invited me to meet with her, and at the designated time we sat down and talked for all of eight minutes. She started off by asking what I wanted (a little odd actually), when I was only seeking information and looking at potential collaborations with my non-profit and theirs. She was unwilling to tell me what she does, and surprisingly unable to talk about what was happening in her own community, but also expressing little interest in mine. Guava is all about green job training for youth of color around the built environment. When I left I knew she knew close to nothing about buildings, and worse did not care. Her focus was a narrow interpretation of her job description, project coordinator. I had no hope. I was not within her narrow parameter, and hence not a candidate for working with.

I have many happy stories about the green building thing too, please do not misunderstand me. I have long list of people that I consider friends as a result of working at this. I only tell these stories to present the dramatic departure from the wonderful rhetoric we all hear and the shear obvious nonsense that comes from within. Pomegranate is a disgrace when it comes to collaboration, which is real green building. The Guava’s project manager was ignorant of her community and the basics of what green collar work is, but worst of all she was not curious. Their blind spot is bred from a lack of experience, but I am willing to bet that their pride will not allow them to gain that vital experience without a lot of screw ups.

Want Less

2009-09-08T15:55:00.000-06:00

Selling the Green Shark

2009-09-01T12:52:00.005-06:00

By this time many of us have seen about as much green as we can handle. As a marketing point the word “green” is getting close to jumping the shark. Just in time I suspect. If “green” ceases to be a word of distinction then it no longer provides us with a better way to distinguish the environmental degradation of our consumption from what is less so. We will still see the word around for quite a while, maybe as a verb. There is a large segment of the population that will respond to environmentally proven products and services only when they have exhausted most everything else, or succumb to group think, or peer pressure, or regulations.

I for one have no qualms seeing the word “green” take a vacation. I have always been suspicious of its vagueness because I work in the world of building, which can be very precise. In my infinite wisdom I use the word “sustainable”, instead, to describe my company. My website shot to the top of GOOGLE when you typed in “sustainable building consultant”. This is good news only if other people use the same words. So the search continues in bridging the gap between talking about the precision of what environmental design, products and services mean and the warm fuzzy “green” has promised.

Environmentally proven products and services only matter if people can find them, understand them, and can afford them. Each of these aspects requires a specific skill, and in the building world, each of these skills needs to also have a deep understanding of buildings. Your marketer is really a building professional who can reach out to the public. The designer is a building professional who can put together a functional and clear building that is intuitively better. Your developer is a building professional who can create value. They can be one in the same person, but without these three aspects working together we will not achieve a marketable “sustainable” built environment anytime soon.

I find the biggest hurdle to be that a lot of people already think they know what green building is. The Problem is that they do. They know about solar panels, low-e, voc, natural plaster, etc. That is green building. Sustainable building is really the whole project, and that project is merely part of a much larger cloth, a living, breathing civilization. This is something that precious few understand and aspire to but something you need to consider for your next home.

So for this months the sustainable line I flipped a coin on whether to publish Selling the Green Shark (a little curmudgeon) or The First Step on Sustainable Building: Siting/Location (more informative). Well you know how the coin fell, but now you know what to expect for next month too, so stay tuned.

On the more practical side, I had a conversation with my local Home Depot guy and he said that although building is slow, fences and roofing is selling well. That reminded me of a little trick that can vastly improve your energy bills. If you are getting a new roof, stop! First check to see if you have roof joist, i.e. no attic. If you do, tear off your old roof and apply foam board and new OSB sheathing onto the roof deck before you put your new roof up. Upgrading your insulation now on your roof is the most affordable and effective way to improve you efficiency on top.

“Green Building with the Naked Eye” is a presentation that I offer which provides perspective and insight into what sustainable building really is. If your company, organization, conference, or neighborhood group is interested in learning about how sustainable building works, contact me for a presentation. Learn to see sustainable building clearly.

My friend Jim Tolstrup, the Executive Director of the High Plains Environmental Center has written a great article on sustainability and the mind called Inner Sustainability.

I have very much enjoyed your email responses to the sustainable line, so go ahead and share with others by posting a comment on the blog. They would really enjoy reading what you have to say too. “Share and Enjoy!” (The first person who can name the source of this quote will get a free Nautica Polo Shirt. It is very green (color #382) and still has the original price tag of $49.50. Your choice of large or extra large. Sponsored by The Frank Stanly.)

Rain For A Sunny Day

2009-08-12T12:42:00.004-06:00

Originally on GenGreen July 2009

Rain for a sunny day

It’s late spring, and this year there has been a lot of rain in my fair state of Colorado. Being in a high desert, with all this water coming at once, makes a lot of us want to save some of it for those hot, dry, sunny days. I am perhaps one of the lucky ones, as I installed a 1,500-gallon underground tank near my shop to catch the water that comes off its metal roof. Fifteen hundred gallons sounds like a lot of water, and it is. The tank is six feet high and seven feet in diameter. All this water is used for flushing our 1.6-gallon toilet, which is a lot easier than pumping and treating water just to have it go right down the drain again. “A thousand flushes” has a new ring to it. While I use rain for waste water now, a future garden and greenhouse is in the works. Even a 500 square foot roof is enough for two people.

Weather is unpredictable here and promises to be even more so in the coming years. A quick peek at the forecast of temperature changes shows that the Rocky Mountain region is headed for some hot, dry summers. It makes sense to do all we can with our homes to “future proof” them. Water catchment should be near the top of the list. And here are some reasons why:

The water is free
It keeps your landscape from being over-saturated and protects your foundation
It is clean and soft (low salts, high in nitrogen)
It can be used for multiple applications
It supplements our drinking water, which takes a lot of energy and infrastructure to get to your tap
You are using a local resource
1 inch of rain per 1000 horizontal square feet of roof amounts to 620 gallons

Here are a few things to think about if you are considering catching your rain water. If your roof has asphalt shingles, the water should not be used for edible crops. Keep gutters clean and use a water filtering device before the tank. If you want to use the water for more than just the warm seasons, your system must be well designed for the cold. The collection tank needs to be covered to keep critters and mosquitoes at bay and large enough to handle storm surges and longer dry spells. You may need a pump, valves, and a power source to make the water go where you want it. Check your local laws. In Colorado, for instance, it is slowly being legalized (don’t get me started).

The idea of “future proofing” a house is intriguing, so if you plan on building a new home, consider rain water catchment. Plumb a second line to your toilet, one for potable water and the other for rainwater. Roof your home with metal or tile so the water is kept clean. Be creative in your application of the water. Use it for your laundry-- cold water is just as effective for rinsing as hot, and check out those cold-water detergents, they save a lot of energy. Maybe the house should have hose bibs for rain water to wash your car and water the landscape or even water livestock. With a bit of research, this can pay off for you, your neighborhood and protect the 21st century’s most valuable resource.

Rain For A Sunny Day

2009-08-12T12:40:00.001-06:00

Rain For A Sunny Day: Rainwater Catchment

View more documents from Baosol Consulting.

Want Less

2009-08-04T23:08:00.002-06:00

Want less

In the Neighborhood

2009-07-30T15:50:00.006-06:00

It’s true that we often chose to live near those who are similar to ourselves- ethnically, financially, and even spiritually. But even this is not enough of a power for a real neighborhood to be created. Many folks often no longer know what they have in common with their neighbor. Can you blame them? We have built homes for quite awhile now as though they are little islands with the garages as their port of entry. Often we may recognize those who live near us just by their cars.

I have been thinking about neighborhoods for the past few weeks for work and am realizing that there is no real fixed understanding of what makes a neighborhood work except the dynamic of how people relate to each other. Can you design a place that improves how people connect to each other and create a real community? Is it more of a roll of the dice? Just because someone shares a similar racial, financial or spiritual background with you may mean very little in regards to how you relate with them. Do some neighborhoods work regardless of how poorly they were designed and other highly-designed ones fail? I have a favorite in the town I live near, Ft. Collins, Colorado. It is in the suburban section, where faded pastel boxes with a garage in front sit along streets that twist and turn inside a mile-square grid. The one exception is a couple blocks that, instead of large yards, the developer put a sizeable rectangular open space in the middle that all the homes face. This also means that all these homes face each other too. This shared space works out great for the dogs and kids, and the adults end up talking to each other. Now everyone knows each other by their voice, not just their car.

I do not know how intentional this development was. It was a simple idea but was not repeated through town. I suspect that real estate agents were afraid of the small yards, but developers realized that if they made the yards smaller they could squeeze more boxes in, and so it goes. What we got was what we all now clearly understand as suburbia. My wife and I have a little game, well, more of a joke. We look at a development’s name and try to guess what was there before the bulldozers came in. Think “Fox Acres” or “Pleasant Meadows” or “Arapahoe Ridge”.

It is for good reason that there is a backlash to the suburban life. The price paid for more and cheaper square footage helped create a real disconnection from those around you, a lack of community. The old town part of Ft. Collins rarely has a “house for sale” sign that stays up for long, but in the mountains where I live, a house at the bottom of the road is celebrating its second year on the market. As an investment it is obvious where to place your chips. But yet the old neighborhoods are hard to recreate from scratch. A mixed use, walkable, park-filled place does not necessarily translate into a great neighborhood.

I have a simple working theory for this. We are better off not living close to people similar to ourselves, but different. One’s ethnic or sexual orientation is a powerful gift to those with a different make up. Same goes with wealth and religion (or lack of either one). This is not kumbayah. I am not suggesting that everyone is going to like each other, only that we have the chance to understand our neighbors better and so we become better for it. I can honestly say that I have little in common with any of my neighbors, but I still seem to communicate with them all the time (the development is called Buckskin Heights, and sure enough one neighbor shot the local buck.) It is not because of my front porch, or that we all face a park or whatever urban planners’ thinking is. We all live on a dirt road, acres from each other. I think it is the difference in our personal lives that keeps us communicating (and my very social dog). Is this Dr. Phil material? Maybe I should get back to talking about buildings.

Can you design for this kind of thriving community? Yes, but only if you ignore the historic pressure of building to a “market”. If you’re serious about this I bet that you need to build to suit a variety of backgrounds and mix of incomes and interests. Throw in some front porches and a way to get around besides the two ton personal transport and we are heading somewhere. My personal lesson learned is to create a common area to gather and run the kids and dogs silly. Even the annoying stuff expressed in Tom Waits’ ballad* that shares the same title as this the sustainable line doesn’t seem so bad, because you are home.

Don’t miss the 2009 EarthWorks Expo in Denver August 22nd and 23rd where I will give a workshop that explores “Green Building with the Naked Eye” in the Panda (!) Room at 4:30 August 22. Here is my attempt at self-promotion:

“Pondering all the aspects of green building can seem like looking through a prism. Learn how to see a green building clearly. This workshop will give an overview of how to look at sustainability in building. See how LEED and Energy Star for Homes work using integrated design and a collaborative approach. Take home seven steps to a sustainable building that you can use to put the different components of green building into perspective. By developing a discriminating eye you'll be better prepared when you want to renovate, buy, or build from the ground up.”

Comment on your neighborhood, or lack of one.

Andrew Michler, LEED AP

The photo was taken at a “new urbanism” project called Prospect New Town in Longmont, Colorado.

*Well the eggs chase the bacon
round the fryin' pan
and the whinin' dog pidgeons
by the steeple bell rope
and the dogs tipped the garbage pails
over last night
and there's always construction work
bothering you
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Friday's a funeral
and Saturday's a bride
Sey's got a pistol on the register side
and the goddamn delivery trucks
they make too much noise
and we don't get our butter
delivered no more
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Well Big Mambo's kicking
his old grey hound
and the kids can't get ice cream
'cause the market burned down
and the newspaper sleeping bags
blow down the lane
and that goddamn flatbed's
got me pinned in again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

There's a couple Filipino girls
gigglin' by the church
and the windoe is busted
and the landlord ain't home
and Butch joined the army
yea that's where he's been
and the jackhammer's diggin'
up the sidewalks again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

An education in LEED’s irony

2009-07-24T09:40:00.003-06:00

I feel very fortunate that the USGBC is very active where I live. I am also fortunate to have a lot of LEED commercial buildings popping up around too. Our local USGBC group arranged a hard hat tour of a gold rated building under construction in downtown. It is being built by a very wealthy NGO that has deep pockets and a big heart. A week before the tour they made a ‘slight’ change in plans and decided that we would not be allowed inside. A best guess is for safety reasons.

Well a lot of folks showed up none the less with hard hat in hand. We ended up on the other side of the street sweating and watching brick being laid as one of the contractors describe some LEED points that the building achieved. One question asked was how the innovation points were earned. The best answer I heard was that they intended to put an “education” center in the building for everyone to learn how it was put together and how the building works. OK, I sniff an irony.

If you haven’t smelled it yet don’t worry because it took me a few hours to connect the dots. After the ‘tour’ we went back to a contractor's office nearby and have a beer together. Very nicely done. I asked an organizer of the ‘tour’ if it was the lawyers who got sketchy. He said it was the building owner who denied access to our educational event. No further details.

Ok, now the irony has the smell of Limburger. And it was a hot day too. Limburger cheese on a hot day. A nice cooled beer helped, but please…

I would kindly request the USGBC revoke the education point if a building is not accessible to third parties during construction. A few dozen building professionals were denied the essential opportunity to see firsthand LEED construction but the building still gets its innovation point. Education in the building profession is fundamental for expanding green building’s role. If you are going to claim the LEED system on your project then you should allow the local USGBC to use that project as an educational platform.

Please have your dessert before your veggies

2009-07-13T10:59:00.003-06:00

Bobby Kennedy Jr. recently made his way to Ft. Collins, Colorado to give a talk about the green energy future. While I did not attend, I got a report of him saying that you need to "eat your veggies before your dessert." He was referring to installing solar electric panels as being your dessert, and creating an energy efficient building as your vegetable. This logic did not quite sit right with me. I know his commitment to a new natural capital economy is pure but his take on the energy efficiency vs. renewable energy debate is a little cloudy.
Here is my way of thinking (and in the spirit of Mr. Kennedy, let me use analogies). Energy is the glue of civilization. Without it we will quickly fall apart. The environment is the bank account of civilization. You cannot over draw without severe penalties, and the interest on debt is compounded. So to resolve the toxic effects of the glue we need to create new formulations that do not withdrawal nearly so much from the environment. We are simply attempting to replace one glue formula with another. Mined carbon with solar and other renewables. This is environmentally important, but certainly not a dessert, we are just replacing one electron with another as the end user.
Energy efficiency is the other hand to renewable energy if you want applause for a natural economy (to throw another analogy into the conversation of course). Without efficiency we are never going to achieve a balance in our closed loop environment. While energy efficiency may be Kennedy’s vegetable, to me it is the dessert. When it comes to building for instance, nothing is sweeter than a well designed and built shelter that is comfortable, naturally lit and ventilated, and affordable to run. While your solar panels are sitting on the roof making some electrons, you efficiency efforts are rewarding you with comfort and financial stability. The solar panels are more like an appliance, or in this conversation, the vegetable.
So with all respect to Mr. Kennedy and the tremendous work and leadership he is displaying with his involvement in the new “green” economy, I would ask him to reconsider his view of energy efficiency.

Real Green Builders Collaborate

2009-07-01T12:47:00.003-06:00

The green building movement has its spurts and starts, but on the whole sustainability is still a theoretical notion, an interesting side note in the building world. While a lot of people are taking notice, very few of them are taking real steps in adopting the deep knowledge base within their own buildings. Someone told me to think about it like this-- in the tech sector, new processes change the industry every two years or so, in the automobile industry it takes maybe ten years, but in the building trade it takes fifty years to adopt new thinking. If this is true, then by the time most of today’s builders retire or go to the big building in the sky we will be ready for sustainable building. Stuff like advanced framing is still a curiosity in the profession, even though it takes fewer materials, less time to construct, and results in a much improved energy-efficient wall system. A local homes developer with million-dollar houses on the market, and a LEED platinum one to boot, will still try to save a buck on engineering by framing their projects conventionally. Whoever buys these homes is getting an inferior product, and any money saved on the engineering just gets lost on materials and labor. This is just one of many issues often neglected in the making of a building. In the end you get a failed project from the standpoint of sustainability because of a lack of commitment and foresight. Builders and developers are often willing to take great financial chances in the marketplace, but where it really counts, the building they make, they often leave us with poorly conceived projects.

This is unacceptable. These builders may have been putting together buildings for years, using the same methods that lead to the same mistakes. Building but rote, by first dollar, by fickle market demands is leaving us with million-dollar energy vampires dotting the landscape. Their little brothers and sisters are hungry too. All are sitting around waiting for their next meal.

How do we stop breeding these vampires? First take a breath. The high-flying building boom is over. Speculative development has crashed, along with its commuter-based, isolated, and resource-intensive program. This is a wonderful time to step back and examine what we are doing. This is our opportunity to redesign our mode of operation and reestablish our relationship with our buildings, our buildings with our community, and our community with the environment.

The failed approach to building up to this point, I suspect, is that we building professionals are too proud to admit when we make mistakes. As one who has constantly found a better way to do things by messing them up, I have some firsthand knowledge that too much pride can develop a bad building. I am a better consultant when my oversights are pointed out, the earlier the better. I am a better builder when those who I work with are better at it than I am. The best green building is one where those who know how to do it are the ones who are allowed to. At this point the market for green building is not met, it is made. I understand that it will take time for green building to prosper, but we must start taking it seriously now. Now is not a point in time, now is an attitude and a commitment.
I am not your competition, nor are your mine. We are conspirers in a project that is focused on birthing new approaches that solve the mess we created. That mess comes to you in the mail once a month from your local utility. That mess is a child with asthma. That mess is a billion dollar water reservoir because we are too cheap or too distracted to change out our old toilet, fix our faucet, and change our showerhead. A lot of folks don’t really give a damn, no pun intended. If you are reading this then you probably do.

Here is how we are going to collaborate in making a substantial improvement in our built environment. We share our knowledge, our passion, and our resources. We give ground, applaud great ideas, and put our money and backs into it. We demand, coax, and, if we have to, we beg. We allow each other to take chances. We enjoy each other’s company but stand our ground. We respect the deep level of knowledge each one of us brings to the table. We suspend our disbelief. We rise to the occasion and do not slip into mediocrities. We engage. We return phone calls and emails. Ask someone you respect what they think.

Van Jones, from my home town of Oakland, sums it up in his new book The Green Collar Economy. “The time has come for us to stop letting a small number of groups and leaders carry the load on environmental and energy policy. Rather than complaining about the way they do it, all of us must step forward, take responsibility, and say in our own voices: ‘This is our Earth, too. We are going to be a part of saving it.’”

This edition of the sustainable line is written in the spirit of a manifesto to all interested parties regarding the official formation of the Be Local Northern Colorado Green Builder Group. Please contact me if you would like more information.

The next new building

2009-06-16T18:34:00.001-06:00

You have your dream project, or a necessary one. If you invest to do the project well now you will be rewarded with the performance of your building through its life span. The benefits of building a “green” building are significant and will only become more valuable in the future. Like a good pair of shoes your building will wear in well. The McMansion phenomenon of our last decade provides ample evidence of what happens when you purchase an expensive pair of shoes that was not particularly well made or comfortable. To create a sustainable building does not need to cost more.

The distinct advantages of building from scratch are numerous. From site location to system integration, to conceptual realization, building can be a very exciting endeavor. Unlike an existing structure, a new building provides an opportunity to build and integrate a structure that takes best advantage of sighting, materials, and techniques. Using advanced framing to save lumber, good engineering to save concrete, and a smart floor plan to provide more usable space, saves money up front.

Even more importantly than a retrofitted building, good planning for a new building is crucial. The integration of all aspects of a building will help guarantee that the most potential is taken from the resources involved. Examine how natural ventilation will work, how thermal mass can be integrated, how natural, balanced light can be utilized, what product last the longest or have a reduced environmental impact. There can be scores of questions that can be addressed, reworked and integrated to achieve subtle, dynamic, and elegant answers. The next new building should be the answer to these questions.

7 steps to a sustainable building project

2009-06-04T16:08:00.002-06:00

Slide show of the seven steps to a sustainable building project.

7 steps to a sustainable building project

View more Microsoft Word documents from Baosol Consulting.

Green building is for conservatives: a financial case

2009-06-01T15:06:00.006-06:00

Our buildings are central to our lives, and we put a tremendous amount of our wealth and skills into making them. Current standard building practices are not a natural fit for the experimental, odd looking, obscure buildings often associated with green building. However, in reality the modern green building movement is a highly tuned, intensive, and measured approach to building that values efficiency, health and durability.

The success of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has not been based on their radical agenda but on the practical results of the types of building they have helped shape. Go on to their website or read a brochure and they will mention the larger environmental benefit of green building, but then the USGBC will also detail the financial values of green building. A Leadership in Efficient and Environmental Design (LEED) building is cheaper to operate, improves health by reducing causes of asthma and other health issues, increases resale value and rents, reduces maintenance, and improves productivity. The improvement in productivity in LEED commercial buildings alone can pay for the entire building. No wonder so many companies and government groups such as the Times Corporation, United Services Automobile Association, Condé Nast, universities, municipalities, schools and so on, are using the LEED standard to build platinum level buildings. Ok, so this sounds like a pitch for LEED. These large projects have demonstrated the value gained by investing in green building principles, but skyscrapers and houses are not the same thing. The budget for building a house is much tighter and less flexible. When I talk about green building, the first thing I often hear is that it is expensive (meaning too expensive to justify).

I can best dissuade this argument by my experience of designing and building my own home. My wife and I live on a very tight budget. The only way for me to build a reasonable house was by rethinking all my assumptions about how a house works. Size matters, so fewer materials means a lower mortgage, easy. Engineer the building for the actual loads and do not over engineer (see the blog posting "An engineer's role in green building" by Mark Benjamin PE on the sustainable line: blog) and build using advanced framing techniques. I spent a lot of time designing the space, rethinking the floor plan, the day lighting, materials, water, electrical, thermal mass, insulation detail, until I knew it was right. There are things I would have changed, and lessons learned, but the house looks good (a pat on my back), works well, and cost $600 a month in mortgage payments. No power or water bill to boot. The building plan for my house will not work for many other houses, but the approach to designing it will. There is no, and will never be, a cookie cutter system. The suburbs of the last couple decades are losing value in part because the cookie cutter approach turns out to be a failed model, a bad investment.

A home that that works well retains value. Energy efficiency is naturally at the top of the list. When you make an investment you want to reduce risk. Green building is a way now to do this because you are fixing your investment dollars up front. Every decision and dollar you make to reduce your energy consumption buffers you from the increasingly unstable energy market. The simple laws of supply and demand will keep energy prices tracking upward. If you borrow $2,000 to upgrade your heating and cooling system, your added cost to a loan will be $20 a month but your energy saving would make up for it, and in the future you will save money each month. Another way of putting this is that your investment pays for itself on day one! If you choose to sell the house the money for the added value will be in your hot little hand. Another example is those noisy little bath fans. They are cheap and loud, but with all that noise they should do something. Well, they use a lot of electricity too, but don't move much air. In a few years you need to repaint your bath because you're little noise maker never got the moisture out (and hopefully not just into the attic). For a hundred bucks more you get a quiet, efficient, and effective fan that keeps the painter out.

Green building investing is not just about energy. One's well being is a large part of the equation. In fact, the tug of war in green design is often between energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Good IEQ has its own, perhaps less quantifiable, payback. Good natural light helps with our well being as well as lowering lighting bills, but could increase cooling and heating costs. Good air quality protects our health. Thermal comfort keeps us happy. The investment in IEQ may help with resale and rent, and the value to our well being will be substantial.

All this first dollar payback talk is a trap, though. The current model for making investment decisions is to make incremental changes until you can't justify the cost with the money saved. This approach leads to mediocre overall design and only addresses a little of the building's potential. Looking at a more substantially integrated and advanced design can propel a building into a new category of investment, one that is recognized with a robust certification system, and highly sought after. Again supply and demand provide the key to investing in green building. For the next decade demand will push up the value of good green building as consumers and investors can better quantify them, and supply will be forced to keep pace.

Since we are talking about the marketplace, I should promote green building consulting. A good green building consultant (like me) will be able to greatly improve a building project by integrating the design and all the folks who make the building happen, by making the building components work better to save materials and energy, and help guarantee a quality building, which in turn become a quality investment. CALL US TODAY!

An Engineers Role in Green Building

2009-05-27T15:23:00.006-06:00

AN ENGINEERS ROLE IN GREEN BUILDING

There is a myriad of construction methods available today. Some options include conventional wood frame of small dimensional lumber (2x4’s up to 2x12’s), timber frame, log, steel frame (from light gauge to structural shapes), concrete (as a frame or as bearing walls/roofs/floors), straw bale (either load bearing or as infill between a structural frame), rammed earth (in forms or stacked scrap tires), earth bag (a form of rammed earth), cob (another form of rammed earth using stacked balls/rolls of earth/clay), insulated concrete form (ICF; concrete poured into insulated forms that are not removed), structural insulated panels (SIPs; foam blocks sandwiched between sheets of structural plywood/gypsum board) to name a few. A modern home can be comprised of a combination of many of those methods. The foundation can be conventional or ICF concrete or wood (treated to resist moisture damage) bearing walls; the floor dimensional or engineered lumber, SIPs or concrete; the walls any of the frame methods, ICF, SIPs, straw bale, or any of the rammed earth methods; the roof dimensional or engineered lumber, SIPs or concrete. A future green/sustainable homeowner needs to become knowledgeable and educated in order to properly decide what types of home construction method to use.

While certain goals and criteria of the occupant’s needs and desires should be maintained in the design, these can be manipulated for more efficient use of materials. A recent design we participated in included a large lower level garage with covered parking outside the garage doors. A concrete deck was included over the garage and parking area to make that space usable and to allow the homeowners a panoramic view of their surroundings. The homeowner wanted some rooms added, which were placed in the deck area. The result placed loads from ICF concrete walls and roof over the garage and parking area, with no place for supporting columns. Hence, many large steel beams, the size of those used in high rise buildings, needed to be used to support the loads between column locations spaced far and few between. When this was pointed out to the homeowner, the response was that the design was too far along to significantly change. We were able to convince the homeowner to use lighter weight SIPs walls, transfer roof loads to other bearing points, use a lighter weight wood framed deck with a roofing membrane, and to place a few columns in locations that he could live with. Despite that, there were still beams over 25’ long supporting more beams over 25’ long supporting loads, which required those skyscraper sized steel beams, for a residential project.

Bringing the structural engineer on board early in the design can eliminate many of these problems when they most easily can be dealt with, before the “stone” stage. Structural engineers, by our training and experience, are able to look at a design and quickly assess the basic structural load path shape (how the loads are carried by the structural frame to the ground), spot critical areas, and draw attention to structural issues, whether major or minor. This is best done in the schematic phase of the design, coordinating with the designer and homeowner the optimal layout for their individual goals and criteria. A description of the design phases that an architect employs are as follows: The Programming, or Gathering Information, phase is where an architect spends time with the homeowner to determine how their current space is adapted to the way they live now, to better understand how future changes will suit their needs more directly, and finally a list of intentions and rough sketches of spatial adjacencies (what areas are adjacent) specifically derived from the homeowner and the building site is prepared; the Schematic Design phase is where the architect formulates a concept - a theme - which turns the written description and adjacency diagram into spatial definition; Design Development phase is where the architect and the homeowner continue to define - through plans, elevations and sections - the size of rooms, types of materials, and exact placement of the building; the Construction Document phase is where a set of detailed documents are prepared. According to architectural standards, this set informs the builder of the appearance and construction detail of the trim, built-ins, doors, and surface elements, with no mention made of the structural system (italics added). It is vital that the structural engineer become involved prior to layout of the rooms and major spaces, the Design Development phase, during or just after the Schematic Design phase, when the design can be reviewed with an eye to the structure supporting all loads surrounding those spaces. In the previous example, the design could have been changed to accommodate the extra rooms while providing for a simpler load path, eliminating the use of more structure than was needed and still meet the needs of the homeowner.

This is especially important in green/sustainable construction, where the homeowner has made a conscious and informed decision to do their part in assuring a future for coming generations by a reduced use of the earth’s resources, whether in construction or operation of their home. Again, in reference to our previous example, extra steel material was needed to meet the same needs of the homeowner that could have been met if the structure had been structurally reviewed earlier. This homeowner had to spend more money, both in material and labor, to build his home. That impact was directly felt, or will be when the construction invoices come in. In the larger picture, that spelled out by Robert Gilman and embraced by all concerned with our and our children’s future, our houses need to be built without the construction materials being “forced into decline through the exhaustion of key resources”. If even a small percentage of the homes designed use extra materials, that will quickly add up to resources that are not available for the rest of us on the earth. Looking beyond our national borders, groups such as Engineers Without Borders (EWB; ewb-usa.org) an international group of engineers helping those in developing countries achieve basic needs of water, sanitation and education, will not have steel available for water wheels to transport water to the fields for food production; Habitat for Humanity International (habitat.org) will not have the materials to provide basic shelter to those in developing countries; this highlights just two of the groups helping others who will have their work greatly impacted. What this actually means is that mankind will not be able to continue to exist and flourish if the resources we depend on are prematurely depleted. Participate in responsible green/sustainable design by consulting early in your design process with a structural engineer, and the earth will smile upon you.

The “new” alternative construction methods mentioned earlier carry the same external loads as conventional construction, but the load paths can be significantly different. A structural engineer experienced in and willing to work with such construction methods is an invaluable member of the design team. Different materials carry loads in different ways: load bearing straw bale walls cannot sustain even a small point load and must have a load spreader element on top of the wall; rammed earth walls of all types can carry a limited point load and must have the same load spreader, or an integral load carrying vertical element; SIPs can carry high uniform loads, but also need an integral load carrying vertical element for point loads; all of the alternative methods have their individual idiosyncrasies which must be understood and properly designed for. The loads paths need to account for where the loads act on the supporting elements. A wide wall, such as straw bale, tire, or rammed earth, cannot simply bear on the outer rim of the floor, which in turn is resting on possibly an 8” wide concrete wall. If that load path is not considered, the floor joists may easily become overloaded to the point of failure. The different types of methods also exert unique loads according to the weight of each. A conventional 2x6 and drywall/siding wall 8’ tall weighs 120 pounds per linear foot (plf), while a straw bale wall exerts up to 320 plf, and rammed earth walls can exert 800 plf. These must be accounted for in the design.

There are many experienced architects and designers available who can lay out a design making the best use of your alternative materials: straw bales are between 3’ and 4’ long; wood panels are 4’ wide; tires are an average of 30”-32” diameter; ICF forms come in 48” to 96” lengths with 12” to 16” stack heights; all of these need to be accounted for in the dimensions of the home to avoid unnecessary cutting and fitting. They are familiar with room layout to make the best use of the space you have. They can design in essential elements such as proper window locations to make the best use of daylighting and natural ventilation. They can lay out the utilities so that heating and plumbing runs are efficient and not oversized. There are many factors that come into play in the design of your green/sustainable home. However, only a structural engineer can assure that it will safely withstand the forces of nature, and do so in the most efficient manner possible, with the least use of our earth’s resources. Contact a knowledgeable structural engineer early in the process of designing your home, and you will have the “greenest” green/sustainable home available.

Mark Benjamin, P.E., M.ASCE, SECB is president and principal engineer for Crown Jade Design and Engineering, Inc., a structural engineering firm specializing in green/sustainable housing design See us on the web at www.crownjade.com; email jademail@crownjade.com; or contact us at 970-472-2394.

Is carbon a waste product?

2009-05-12T15:28:00.001-06:00

Let’s keep this simple, atmospheric carbon is a waste product as a result of our modern lifestyle and energy choices. Here is the definition of a waste product: ‘something that is taken out of the earth but not capable of being reintroduced.’ The logic is very simple. One half of the carbon we emit will last in the atmosphere for geologic time. This is an actual fact, and even though it is not a famous one it is central to the issue of where does civilization go from here? This is about the time when the grandfather in Moonstruck says “somebody tell a joke.”
We know what a waste product is very well because of the nuclear power debate. You can take the uranium out of the land but can’t safely reinsert the stuff after it has done its enrichment and fission thing. Interestingly, Steven Chu, our energy secretary, now sees nuclear waste as less of a hazard than the greenhouse gasses we are now emitting. We can wait around for some particle physicists to harness vacuum energy, dark energy, dissect and manipulate M-theory to extract energy from the 10th dimension, call it holographic energy, or capture all of our coal plant carbon (as seen on Sixty Minutes), and send it towards China via the Earth’s core. In the mean time we can stop wasting so much energy. The last option sounds a whole lot cheaper. Call it the low entropy revolution.

Tax rebates out the window? True or False

2009-05-06T11:09:00.002-06:00

Ye-haw, we got energy efficient tax rebates!
Now you can upgrade your home and get the fed to help with the bill. Here is a quick quiz about those new windows you want to get:

1. A Champion Windows TV commercial claims that your average house leaks as much air as an open window. Should you get new windows? True or False

2. Your rebate is only for specific window types that conform to u-factor and solar heat gain limits. Should all your new windows then be applicable for the rebate? True or False

3. Should you replace all your windows regardless of the type? True or False

4. Will installing thermal curtains be equivalent to new windows? True or False

5. Should you save your money for solar panels instead? True or False

6. Are sliders worse than single hung windows? True or False

7. Are new windows the most important thing to consider when doing an energy upgrade? True or False

Extra credit: Are clad windows better than vinyl? True or False

Answers:

1. F This Champion Windows commercial rightfully says that many homes leak approximately 4 sqr ft of air. Getting new windows will often have a minimal effect on air infiltration issues. Many window manufactures are falling all over themselves with misleading information. Please be wary.

2. F See “Dude, tune your windows”

3. F Many existing double paned fixed units with a min ½ inch air gap are only a little less efficient than new windows, especially on the south and north side.

4. T A sealed thermal curtain has the same r-value as an average energy-star rated window.

5. F Reduce your energy consumption first! Its pay back and carbon reduction per dollar is at least 7 times better than solar electric.

6. T Slider type windows are notoriously leaky after installation, avoid them if at all possible.

7. F Always consider the entire thermal envelope of your house before you begin trying to fix it.

Extra credit: T Wood clad and fiberglass usually have a better U-value, but also consider the growing consensus of vinyl as a carcinogen.

Dude, tune your windows (and other simple stuff to make a better building)

2009-05-06T11:07:00.003-06:00

May 2009

I’ll have to start this sustainable line off with an apology. I was having a conversation on Earth Day with a builder for whom I have great respect. I was talking to him about building orientation and how important it is and he told a story about how he talked a couple into facing view windows to the west, to make the clients happy. These are the type of stories that make a green building consultant’s heart sink. So I chastised him. I felt bad and want to say I’m sorry. But then I think about it again and my blood pressure goes up. Its Earth Day 2009 and I have to teach a builder who has built off the grid homes how important good orientation is. If he doesn’t get it, then what about your typical builder/ developer? What about you?
So what is wrong with view windows to the west? In Colorado, where I live that’s where the view is and it makes sense, we have such nice mountains. NO! Not about our mountains being nice, no to the seemingly irresistible urge to make a home an energy idiot. West facing windows gain a lot of heat in the summer months. You need a lot of ac to make it work and probably shades to reduce that late day heat, even with your fancy pants low e-4 glazing. So now you have a view of your shades. These windows give you the view in the winter but you’ll have to subsidize it with a lot of heat, aka money. The home I live in was originally set 20° west of solar south and now I wish I got a crane and turned it before I put in an addition. 20° makes that much difference and the view is still there, really.
Studies have shown a 30% energy savings in just good building orientation. This is not cheap, it’s free! So when I am driving through the country and see houses sitting alone and their windows are everywhere but solar south I know their owners 401k is dedicated to keeping the home from being unlivable for the rest of the homes existence. Just to help dissuade rumors, the LEED commercial green building system does account for building orientation, but currently only if you chose to peruse it in version NC 2.2.
So let’s dig a little deeper. You know all this solar orientation stuff but what’s with the “tune your windows” part, and “dude?” I’ll have to apologize again, that was uncalled for. This subject gets me a little emotional. Tuning your windows simply means that with modern glass you can actually select the amount of solar heat that comes through the window. The big commercial buildings would be in deep trouble if they couldn’t dramatically reduce all the heat that hits the surface. They have glass that can cut 80% or more of the solar heat gain. This keeps the occupants from throwing file cabinets through the windows in overheated despair, thus resulting in the collapsing of the economy (even more.) The housing window manufacturers and dealers followed suit and sell their fancy pants low-e windows as energy savers.
So what’s wrong with low-E glass? It keeps the winter heat in and summer heat out. We are smart and our windows are south facing with good overhangs so in the winter we can heat our house up and the low-e glass will keep our rug from fading. NO! The window folks, I will refer to them to as ‘Dude’ for this conversation, are not correct. Dude will tell you about the U-factor, basically a measurement of how much heat escapes the entire window unit, and low-e eliminates fading (it doesn’t). Dude will talk about low-e2 glass, and how low-e4 glass is even better, aka more expensive. But look at the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) sticker on that new window, over on the side, see it, next to the U-factor number. That’s the solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) rating. In the building world you have to get used to acronyms. That number is basically a percentage of heat that comes through the window from the outside. Large commercial buildings are very keen about heat gain.
But you are building a house where you want heat gain in the winter and out in the summer. Summer is easy, limited west and east facing windows, overhangs to shade your southern windows. Winter is long here in Colorado and some free sunshine heat would hit the spot, but not according to the sticker on that new window. An average low-e2 window is reducing about 60% of that solar heat and low-e4 is up to 80%. The lower the number the more radiation that is blocked from the outside. Don’t be discouraged though, you have the ability to purchase glass with a different SHGC. Dude doesn’t talk about this but there are two types of low-e, a hard coat which has a low SHGC .30-.45, and a soft coat which has a higher SHGC, around .60-65 and hence more heat gain. So all you need to do is order the soft coat low-e with a high SHGC for your southern windows and a low SHGC for the other sides of the house. It may take a little more effort but you will be well rewarded with a smart house (except in Phoenix). Computer modeling could show that you may even be better off without low-e glass. For extra credit figure out the shading coefficient (and then email me at andrew@baosol.com, because I don’t get it).
How much southern facing window? Rule of thumb is 7% fenestration (window area) on the southern side, and if you really good at this green building thing 20% fenestration with distributed direct gain thermal mass.
Ok, next month is “Why green building is for the conservatives”, and bowing to the blogosphere and its rapacious appetite I’ll be adding an extra post or two a month to the sustainable line: blog such as “Is carbon a waste product?” and “Tax rebates out the window? True or False”.

Thanks to igreenbuild.com, Otherpower, and treenex.com for letting me banter on to their websites.

Andrew Michler, LEED AP

2009-05-06T11:01:00.004-06:00

Natural Urges

2009-04-09T14:50:00.002-06:00

I went to a USGBC talk a couple nights ago on natural ventilation in Denver at the REI flagship building. To me this is a very sexy subject. Natural building ventilation is elegant, efficient, and democratic. The room REI built for meetings was sadly not these things. A huge tube above us with a few diffusers into the room mocked the conversation as it first belted us with constantly changing air temperatures and then turned off and left us in an increasingly stuffy room. I mention this not to give REI a hard time but to point out that we sadly do not have enough really well designed buildings in which to embrace. The Denver REI downtown flagship building is a marvel. From its underground parking with a park on top to the enormous factory, turned museum, turned retail this is a cool building. I feel a little guilty complaining really, sort of like you met someone famous and all you mention about them is that they passed gas. The REI building is neat, but it did not serve one of its primary duties that night, keep it occupants comfortable. So as maybe a hundred and fifty or so folks listened over the HVAC’s din about how to build big buildings without HVAC and still make them comfortable. I’m sure the point was drilled home quite well. I can’t think of any seminars, conferences, or talks I have attended that were in a great “green” building. The attendees usually complain about the lack of natural light, bad air, and someone might mention the irony (usually me, to be a smart ass.)
Think of a sexy person. Especially if you’re single, you want to know them. Maybe chat, flirt if you need too. If they come off ditzy, a little arrogant, you know, it quickly changes how comfortable you feel around them. It’s the same with a building. It looks good, it has all kinds of cool stuff, but if you hang out in it and it makes a lot of noise and is the wrong temperature you get second thoughts.
Natural ventilation is sexy simply because of its elegance. It is not easy to pull off and needs to be supplemented, but when it works it takes care of your air quality, comfort, sense of well being and gives you control all at the same time, with no juice. So when a room full of well behaved green building folks are contemplating their future influences in a well conceived space we can all think “Well that works….”
Hopefully the agenda of most people in that room was to make these really great buildings, but we could use a few more to hang out in, like the MCA just down the block. They had the smart idea that if you’re going to build a visual arts building then even the walls themselves should let in the natural light.

Report from the front lines of near zero

2009-03-31T12:46:00.002-06:00

Report from the front lines of near zero

April 2009

“Net-zero” is no longer a cheesy internet provider but the holy grail of the society’s environmental infrastructure. Real or imaginary, it inspirers engineers, entrepreneurs, and builders to create buildings that need no fossil fuels what so ever to run on. They are looking to low entropy solutions for an increasingly high entropy civilization. Some may even suggest that the embodied energy of the building components should be net-zero. That gets a little complicated so let’s just think about the energy a building uses.

This month’s newsletter edition is a report about my findings of living on solar electricity for a while. I used to think that is was neat to use just the energy from the sun, and I have to admit that I’d brag about it. I would say that it was no big deal, implying that it was a big deal. Now I just think it’s no big deal. The computer I am writing on and the one you are reading this on are a big deal right? Not really, they just do what they need to do. Same with the lights, stereo, the fridge and all that yummy food inside. It’s just stuff (but I do appreciate my wife’s cooking). So the real story is how that stuff is used.

Another group of engineers is busy creating stuff we want but their goal seems to be to satisfy our instant gratification at the expense of our energy savvy. If you want to live near net zero you are in a pitched battle with these engineers and there devious plot of instant on, cheap components, push button color display programmable universe. They put their smart chips in everything. We submit to their electronic dreams. When you want net-zero waking up from this dream is at first a little surprising. Your goal is to use no more energy than you produce, but every which way you look stuff just wants more energy. Worse, at first you can’t see it. You need to develop energy vision, kind of like the guy in the Matrix, but without all the drama. To be net-zero is a training in seeing where energy goes.

Clearly heating your house, your water, and dinner are a challenge. I use wood and propane. This makes me near zero instead of net-zero. Everything else is electricity. Cfl’s saved the day in not just letting me live off the grid but also to enjoy it with good efficient Light! Computers, TVs, printers, tools, and all those damn little black cubes in the wall are itching to eat up my hard earned solar power. I learned early in the game that if it plugs in don’t trust it, confirm it really switches off. If not then put in a switch. Because it was early in the game for me to know this my house has switched plugs for all the electronics. Just to make it even easier to save energy I have a lot of individual ways to light the house, no big fans, pumps, electronic controls, etc. I also use these switches, and make sure the house’s power inverter is off when we go to bed, because even 20 watts on all the time is a lot. This is easier than I thought.

Ok, it is not really that easy. We use energy for everything. Flush your toilet? That water is pumped in at some point, cleaned up at a plant, sent to your toilet, discharged to a sewage plant where it is cleared, pumped a lot more, aerated, filtered, etc… a lot of energy. In fact the book Natural Capitalism mentions that water pumping uses 10% of the entire world’s electricity. What’s that about? Your furnace says 90% efficient, but the motor that pushes the air around and the other motor that takes the combustion air outside is only 50% as efficient as it could be. Statistics are showing that many people actually use more energy with an efficient furnace because they keep the house warmer. I just inspected a house where the owner rightfully updated her furnace to a 90+Afue and 14 seer ac unit. There was even mastic added to the ducts. Sadly, she will see little energy reduction from the ac because it is 1/3 oversized and cools the house faster than it can remove the humidity. A new energy star refrigerator is rated against only like sized models, not the most efficient, and LG even found a way to cheat the testing (they are not the only ones), but regardless, perhaps the refrigerator is sitting across from the west facing window and has sun on it for three hours. These little energy faux pas are everywhere.

Now put on your energy seeking goggles and find them. A kill-a-watt meter might help, a TED for the whole house. Don’t buy stuff and just plug it in forever, look at the label to see what this stuff wants in return. Ignore how much you owe the power company for a moment and look at the kwhrs. That number means a lot. 100kw a person a month is a good start. Just to brag, my wife and I use about 30kw a month each (not including propane) and I can still watch Netflix, play video games, and write newsletters. I have a friend who recently cut her energy use for her whole family by two thirds. I am sorry that near net-zero may seem so boring, but it works. If you need more convincing I can ship the truck load of coal to your house that you use each month. Come to think of it, that’s what the power company is doing already, only even less efficiently. Join the low entropy revolution.

Please pass this newsletter to others if you liked it and to help support my shameless self promotional efforts. Be well and stay tuned for next month’s Sustainable Line on “’Dude, tune your windows’ and other simple stuff to make a better building”

What is sustainable building

2009-03-17T18:55:00.003-06:00

This is something I wrote a little while ago but am posting it because I still like it:

What is sustainable?

The “green” building movement is maturing quickly and has created a tremendous amount of dialog. People of many disciplines and backgrounds are engaging with what green building means.
With this in mind, it seems good to go back to some basic principles, before jumping into what sometimes may seem like the latest craze.
Buildings consume resources. Human, space, material, energy, and financial. By examining how each of these play in a building we can create buildings that become the legacy of how we live in the future.
Human energy is at the center of any project. We spend a great deal of our time building, maintaining, and paying for what we live and work in. At best, all this effort results in a quality of life that is both good and sustainable. Our buildings need to reflect both our personal needs and the needs of a changing planet.
We begin by choosing a place to put a building or reflecting on the space a existing building is on. By relating to the environment surrounding the structure we have a unique opportunity for the building to be in sync with its surroundings.
The physical structure of a building both encompasses the idea of the space, and the reality of a safe, functional and comfortable form. Working with sustainablity in mind, size is often the first consideration. As the project become more defined, the quality and quantity of the applied materials take precedent. An enormous amount of information about building practices and material are now available. Often in conflict with either larger principles or design constraints, the design of a space and materials usage is a dynamic, complex relationship.
The reality of a modern building is that it is not a static form. It takes energy and other resources to run. Along with the inherent energy of the structure, operating it for years to come is a central concern in sustainable building. Lighting alone can use 50% of a buildings energy. Heating, cooling, and appliances all create a substantial, often invisible energy demand. Too often we rely on technology to help solve these problems. By stepping back and looking at how to first use passive approaches, we can greatly improve comfort and productivity. Then, by applying appropriate technologies, we can reduce energy and water consumption to the point where sustainability or “green” building truly means something.
Money. What else can be said, it is the bottom line. The best way to effectively save money is through good design. A well conceived project will use resources efficiently and provide a building that is both easy to maintain and affordable to run.