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?)

How To Be A Good Client? Be A Good/Dog Person

Fitzpatrick-It’s January, and out here in Central California, oranges hang heavy in the orchards and remodeling projects hang heavy in homeowners’ minds. Now is the time when articles titled, “How to Hire A Contractor and Not Be Taken for a Bumpy Ride Down the Shyster Highway” and “How to Choose a Designer Without Being Wallpapered,” appear in the media.

Funny—they have it backward. The economy has slowed, but you still can’t ring a legitimate contractor or designer today and expect her to show up at your house tomorrow, next week, or the week after—unless she has a cancellation. You don’t have to wait six months—unlike the last four years—but the good people are still busy. It’s still a professionals’ market.

Know what this means? The good building and design professionals still get to choose their clients.

How do I get them to choose ME?

Be a Good Client.

What’s a Good Client?

Someone I want to work with.

Who d’ya want to work with?

Someone I don’t mind spending three months to two years of my life with.

Who’s that?

Most people, if given a choice (as we do in a professionals' market), will pick people to work with who are somewhat like themselves. Peg and I have sliced it, diced it, run algorithms, and what we’ve discovered is that that Good Clients for us seem to be dog owners.

Why?

They’re good communicators: speaking both human and dog.
They’re direct communicators: when the dog wants out, he tells you—and his people tend to behave in the same manner.
They’re conscientious: a person who wouldn’t leave Rex in a hot car will probably also show up for our meetings on time.
They’re used to mess being an inevitable and (more importantly) uneventful part of life: e.g. muddy paws, un-potted plants, accidents, shredded pillows.
They participate: the puppy will not house-train itself.
They’re used to life flowing at it’s own pace: the puppy will not be housed-trained immediately.

I’m not flattering myself that my next week’s appointments will all head for the SPCA this weekend. Remember, being you is the best way to be a Good Client, if not for me then for someone else, who will pick you because you remind them of themselves.

And Cat People, don’t despair, there are professionals out there for you too. They’re aloof, show up when they want to, and never let you forget who the most important person in the room is.

Home Purchases and Arranged Marriages

Fitzpatrick-My husband likes to recount the story of a recently-deceased uncle who refused the early 20th century Armenian tradition of arranged marriage in favor of a match of his own choice:

“I saw what happened to my sister,” my husband says his Uncle Luke said. “The parents came over. They got the two got in the car. They took a few drives around the block, and it was over.”
In the space of maybe two hours, two lives changed course.

I feel this way about the purchase of our new house. We drove past it a few times. We viewed it online. And since the owners were still occupying, and the husband was convalescing with terminal cancer--in the house--the pass-through with our realtor lasted all of an awkward ten minutes. We were given one hour to perform our building inspection.

After spending less time on the property than I often spend selecting a pair of shoes, we made one of the larger decisions, and purchases, of our lives.

Except perhaps for the terminally-ill owner, our story is not unique. Rarely is a prospective buyer given the opportunity to simply canoodle about in a house, to be present when the sun rises, when it sets, to watch where on the floor the full moon’s beams fall, to feel through which windows the evening breeze whispers.

So like marrying an almost complete stranger, there is a surreal period when you move in. Things reveal themselves: he has a mole on the back of his right thigh, the softest skin on his body is on the tops of his feet; the switch to the garbage disposal is under the sink, the full moon rise from the pool is spectacular. You notice things you can’t believe you missed: He chews with his mouth open and laughs like Woody Woodpecker; there’s a terrarium beside the fireplace— complete with hose spigot and grow light—and most of the electrical outlets are two-pronged.

This is my first home purchase, and being a designer, everyone keeps telling me I’m going to jump right in and make it what I want it to be.

But is this the right thing to do? In this marriage, am I here to make it what I want it to be, or love it for what it is without trying to change it? (Or at least, BEFORE trying to change it?).

Loving the Job

Koontz - Jodi feels she may have dissed the cat franchise too strongly---but I told her not to worry, I am a recent (1 year and 3 months), cat person... so as the cat partner, let me add my comments regarding being a good client.

Remodeling is an enterprise that reflects something about where a person is in their life. Certainly it reflects on the economic status of the client---being able to remodel is a luxury that not everyone can afford...(see posts regarding the DIY movement). From the professionals side of the equation, this affluence is a given, now we want to know if we can work together with you over the long haul of a remodel...so what colors our decision?

Jodi mentioned an important clue-do you have dogs? Jodi and I both have lived with and loved dogs, and though my work partner, Keith, constantly reminds me that even Hitler loved dogs, Jodi and I do extrapolate about households that don't see themselves complete without one, two or six of these furry additions. I would actually add the cat equation in here too, though Jodi is right about the diffidence and difference between cats and dogs. But the defining similarity is that as a client, you recognize that your wants don't always come first...and you may have to work around the needs of others'.

In the case of a remodel, those needs include the fact that not everything will happen on the time frame you as a client might choose or expect. There are realities to the project that you simply don't know about---the time for a designer to ruminate and come up with the best plan, the delays of suppliers, the efforts by the crew to make the "understory", (all the things you don't see), right, so that the things you do ultimately see are right.

You have to be the kind of person that is willing for things to gel, much like waiting out your kittens clawing stage, or your dogs chewing phase. You have to be a client who recognizes that there is a growth spurt to a job, and that eventually, you'll realize the potential.

And if you're a client who loves animals; dog, cat, rabbit, yea gods, even birds...then for us, you're also a client who recognizes that a real living space takes time, care and love to be all it can be...and you're our type of client.