Elegant Green
...or the insanely sustainable home, is an idea Agnes Bourne suggested I take up as a blog topic. Great idea, Agnes.
This falls in the category of houses I would like to do, but haven't yet. I have looked at elements of each, but not a project where Elegant Green is part of the project "haiku".
Definite includes in the elegant green category--
A homesite with southern exposure, and limited glazing on the western exposure. The drag in the bay area is that some of the best views are westerly views. You mitigate this through solar shades, framing views, and high performance glazing. Walk to town--have an alternative to the single occupancy vehicle. Balance cut and fill on the site where possible.
Daylighting in each bathroom, stair, kitchen and studio space.
Rammed earth construction elements.
LED lighting. This is expensive, but an area to watch. These fixtures will be performing at a 100 lumens/watt level in a couple of years and are already performing in excess of the Title 24 mandated 40 lumens/watt. This will produce amazing options for lighting materials, spaces and scenes.
Hydronic radiant heat in basements and north facing spaces with stone floors.
multi-part finishes with low VOC content.
flyash in the concrete. Smog eating plaster cement finishes if in an urban location.
The new watersaving washers and dryers--My favorite is the Whirlpool Duet, good value, good performance, and sound engineering.
Locally sourced materials--California redwood, western red cedar, locally sourced stone.
100% of electrical power requirements provided by a grid tied photovoltaic array. The downside is that these solar panels require so much power in the silicon fabrication that they are an seven to eight year breakeven in terms of energy usage. Good news is that they last for better than 30 years--degradation is about half a percent per year of listed wattage. Balancing load and generation is a great idea. Locking in your cost of power is a fabulous idea. Grid tied because it is much better to have PG&E as your storage device rather than providing your own storage (batteries).
Certified lumber.Casework made with formaldehyde-free substrates. Fabricated locally.
Elements that I don't believe make the cut include:
Capturing rainwater or greywater and re-using--water catchment creates all types of operational problems. My pref is to let the rain recharge the watertable, and limit the amount of water to be used for irrigation.
Concrete countertops--I like the idea of not hauling stone all over the world, but concrete countertops are a maintenance headache and they stain. Maybe in locations where staining would not be an issue.
Green roofs. Roofs are for solar panels--eight to ten year payback and a thirty year life. I don't like mowing grass, and I would like it even less if I had to do it on my roof.
