Green Building
Found this post in the forgotten pile-dated 1/07! Decided it was still worth posting...lol
Koontz - I just finished watching Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. If you don't know about it yet, it's a film on his quest to alert the world to the impacts of global warming. If you know the topic but haven't watched the film yet, get it, it's worth the time.
Political affiliations aside, I've been wanting to see the film because I am a lover of all things scientific. On the other hand, being in construction is often in direct conflict with being "green" and I haven't wanted to set myself up for the fall so to speak. But I spent this week being sick and realizing that I was on the mend, finally, I decided to watch the film before I felt well enough to ignore it for another six months. There is my logical progression and lo the person who understands it!
The idea of "green" construction has finally gotten enough play so that even our local building authority in my town has speculated on building what they consider to be a "green" home. Jodi and I met up at the unveiling of the project and did a walk through of it. The contractor and the sub-contractors were all in attendance along with various city officials and business mucky-mucks and they all wanted to talk about this leap forward in the world of construction, (and their important part in it).
I left before the talks and I left with a bit of a sour feeling. Let me explain why.
Green building is an idea born straight out of an interest in ecology; "the branch of biology that deals with the relations between living organisms and their environment" (Websters dictionary). The idea therefore, to build "green", is to build with a minimal negative impact on the land, the materials, the constructors and ultimately, the residents. You can substitute the word healthy for the word green and you have a better description of what green building is suppose to be.
But we live in a capitalist society and we already have established methods and materials for home building, not to mention established companies who generate these materials, and if you've ever shopped for organic produce, you know that to buy a product with something left out, you are going to pay a premium price. For green building, it's those elements that need to be left out that are important. And it's here that the idea of green building goes all-to-hell, because it's too expensive for the company making plywood, for instance, to leave out those elements (read chemicals), that they've been mixing into their product for the last couple of decades. They would have to go through too much research and development, too much retrofitting of their factories, too much promotion, to make the changes needed to create a "green" product. So instead, somehow, the idea of green building became the idea of an "energy efficient" house. That lets the plywood manufacturer off the hook-that let's everyone off the hook in fact-except the companies who build appliances-and what the hell, we've been on their backs, much like the car manufacturers, for years anyway. Let those companies get more efficient and we can all share in the windfall of a "green" house.
But that's bullshit.
Energy efficiency is certainly an issue in green building, but contrary to what our local building officials claim (and this goes has high as the federal level in the home building industry), energy is only one of the elements of building green.
I believe that contrary to what the EPA tells us, there is no safe amount of off-gassing from the plywood, carpet, floor glue, paint and god knows what else in these materials we use, to be considered healthy.
Don't tell me a house is "green" when I can walk in and smell the formaldehyde rising up from the carpet. Don't tell me you've created a "green" building because you installed fluorescent lighting but you couldn't design well enough to take advantage of a Southern exposure. Don't pat yourself on the back because you used recycled concrete for the poured driveway but you used chemically treated lumber for the foundation of the structure. And don't tell me that because you estimate the residents gas and electric bill to be cheaper, that constitutes a "green" house. In short, don't bullshit a bullshitter.
Bureaucrats and Industry co-opting the verbiage of green building does not make what they do "green". If you really are interested in "green" building, do some research outside the building industry bullshit (I've used that word a lot in this post haven't I?)
Koontz - I just finished watching Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. If you don't know about it yet, it's a film on his quest to alert the world to the impacts of global warming. If you know the topic but haven't watched the film yet, get it, it's worth the time.
Political affiliations aside, I've been wanting to see the film because I am a lover of all things scientific. On the other hand, being in construction is often in direct conflict with being "green" and I haven't wanted to set myself up for the fall so to speak. But I spent this week being sick and realizing that I was on the mend, finally, I decided to watch the film before I felt well enough to ignore it for another six months. There is my logical progression and lo the person who understands it!
The idea of "green" construction has finally gotten enough play so that even our local building authority in my town has speculated on building what they consider to be a "green" home. Jodi and I met up at the unveiling of the project and did a walk through of it. The contractor and the sub-contractors were all in attendance along with various city officials and business mucky-mucks and they all wanted to talk about this leap forward in the world of construction, (and their important part in it).
I left before the talks and I left with a bit of a sour feeling. Let me explain why.
Green building is an idea born straight out of an interest in ecology; "the branch of biology that deals with the relations between living organisms and their environment" (Websters dictionary). The idea therefore, to build "green", is to build with a minimal negative impact on the land, the materials, the constructors and ultimately, the residents. You can substitute the word healthy for the word green and you have a better description of what green building is suppose to be.
But we live in a capitalist society and we already have established methods and materials for home building, not to mention established companies who generate these materials, and if you've ever shopped for organic produce, you know that to buy a product with something left out, you are going to pay a premium price. For green building, it's those elements that need to be left out that are important. And it's here that the idea of green building goes all-to-hell, because it's too expensive for the company making plywood, for instance, to leave out those elements (read chemicals), that they've been mixing into their product for the last couple of decades. They would have to go through too much research and development, too much retrofitting of their factories, too much promotion, to make the changes needed to create a "green" product. So instead, somehow, the idea of green building became the idea of an "energy efficient" house. That lets the plywood manufacturer off the hook-that let's everyone off the hook in fact-except the companies who build appliances-and what the hell, we've been on their backs, much like the car manufacturers, for years anyway. Let those companies get more efficient and we can all share in the windfall of a "green" house.
But that's bullshit.
Energy efficiency is certainly an issue in green building, but contrary to what our local building officials claim (and this goes has high as the federal level in the home building industry), energy is only one of the elements of building green.
I believe that contrary to what the EPA tells us, there is no safe amount of off-gassing from the plywood, carpet, floor glue, paint and god knows what else in these materials we use, to be considered healthy.
Don't tell me a house is "green" when I can walk in and smell the formaldehyde rising up from the carpet. Don't tell me you've created a "green" building because you installed fluorescent lighting but you couldn't design well enough to take advantage of a Southern exposure. Don't pat yourself on the back because you used recycled concrete for the poured driveway but you used chemically treated lumber for the foundation of the structure. And don't tell me that because you estimate the residents gas and electric bill to be cheaper, that constitutes a "green" house. In short, don't bullshit a bullshitter.
Bureaucrats and Industry co-opting the verbiage of green building does not make what they do "green". If you really are interested in "green" building, do some research outside the building industry bullshit (I've used that word a lot in this post haven't I?)
posted by Remodeling Repartee at 7:27 PM
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