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January 5, 2008
Featured Green Building Program - EarthCraft House
There are about eight zillion local or regional green building programs in this country, and each of them have their own nuances.
So I thought it might be nice to start highlighting them, and looking at some of their projects. I'll start with SouthFace Energy Institute's EarthCraft House Program, since I've always liked these guys.
The program is based in Atlanta, Georgia and has certified over 5,000 buildings - single and multifamily. Southface offers training and education to builders, trades and homebuyers, technical support during the design and construction process, marketing support, and connections back to a number of national and federal government programs.
The program addresses green building and sustainability using a systems approach - a fancy and overused way of saying they consider the house a a system - like a car. Not a bunch of parts, but a whole. The program has options for new construction and renovation work.
Of particular interest is their whole house energy checklist.
And besides, they're pretty cool folks. Check out their initiatives on their Web site.
Anyone have a green building program they'd like to see highlighted here?
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Stacy
Posted by Stacy Hunt at January 5, 2008 8:35 AM
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Comments
While I love all the movement toward energy efficiency there is more to whole house design than the energy performance of a house. Other areas to consider:
Indoor air quality - nice to have a great tight envelope but if you fill the inddors with lots of VOC's your comprimising your own health.
Water conservation - While energy currently dominates headlines, water shortages and pollution are another ticking timebomb.
Environmental impact - includes the sustainability of materials used to how disruptive to the natural systems and site a building is.
And the list goes on and on. I like the USGBC (United States Green Building Council) LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system as a more holistic, whole house design measure. Their web-site is USGBC.org
Posted by: Chris at January 8, 2008 11:38 PM
I have a home that was built in the 70's with a west facing wall in Houston, Texas that has very little insulation in it. I added as much insulation as I could when I added vinyl siding, but it didn't help much. What can I do for more protection on this wall.
Posted by: Faye Schmidt at January 9, 2008 9:49 PM
This is the most zero impact building system I know of please check it out they do GREAT work and the more people who know about it the more likely it is to get into the mainstream.
Go Green!
http://www.calearth.org
Posted by: T.Kuhn at January 10, 2008 10:55 AM
