How To Make a Green Home a Green Home
How do we define what a “green home” is? Most customers would be hard-pressed to describe what they are looking for in a “green” home, especially those who drive a large pickup or SUV to go on a simple grocery run. Personally, I have concerns over the term and what it means. Our planet needs our help, our children’s children need our help, and greenwashing isn’t going to get it done. Paper straws in a plastic wrapper? Who are we kidding? And air purifiers for our homes that potentially create more VOCs than they remove. Besides misleading customers, how about we just don’t put harmful chemicals into our homes in the first place?
Is there a disconnect? Do we understand what the customer is really looking for? As a leading Zero Energy / Net Zero homebuilder, I have faced the question many times “What makes your home better than a code-built home?” Experience has shown me that what they DO want is a home that is healthier, safer, more durable, quieter, more comfortable and yes, more energy efficient.
The abundance of different home labeling programs is also an issue. What is the customer getting and what is the value the program provides to them? It’s just too darn confusing to our customers.
The danger is that our customers experience sensory overload and tune out what is an important message that could provide a life-changing opportunity for their family. Believe it or not, I’ve put a great deal of thought into this while I was writing my book “From Bleeding Edge to Leading Edge: A Builders Guide to Net Zero Homes.”
Yes, the book is about Net Zero and how to get there, but it is not a technical journal. There are other publications that would provide details on almost any area of housing you might wish to study. Rather, “A Builders Guide” is a philosophy book designed to help you think differently about what we build and how we build it.
Within the book, I lay out the eight essential elements of LifeARK™ including The Two Commandments (Developing your Water Management and Air Tightness Plans), The Four Principals of Modern Design (Carbon Reduction, Indoor Air Quality, Occupant Comfort and Climate Resiliency), Explaining Sustainable Survivability and the need for an occupant life support system, And finally, Managing Occupant Expectations. We don’t build for cyborgs so it’s important that what we create can be successfully operated by the occupant and their families.
What can we do to deliver green housing? Let’s unpack the Four Principals a bit further.
For carbon reduction, we have two areas to consider: industry programs such as ENERGY STAR® for New Homes and Zero Energy Ready have done an excellent job of guiding builders to reduce their energy consumption (operational carbon); and more recently, the focus has shifted to looking at building materials and how we can choose products with a lower embodied carbon. In general terms, if you mine it or extract it, then it will have a higher carbon footprint; if it grows, then it will be lower.
When done in a holistic manner, reduced energy consumption can and should result in greater occupant comfort. One area of critical importance is windows with low solar heat gain. Not only do they reduce energy consumption, but they greatly reduce overheating, which in a high-heat event could result in the death of the occupant.
Indoor air quality can have a significant benefit towards providing a greener home as we look to electrical appliances and avoid materials with significant off-gassing.
Lastly, climate-resilient detailing is also highly important. It does not matter how green the home is if it ends up in a landfill after a storm.
With a bit of forethought and planning, it actually is possible to build a green home and it can be done for close to the same cost as a code-built home. I know. My company does it every day. Best of all is that our customers love it.
Visit eeba.org to learn more.
Doug Tarry, President, Doug Tarry Homes