1. Avoid breaking new ground. Some archaic buildings have been abandoned because they always were unsound, but usually the first builder chose the best site on the lot. Restoring and replacing aged buildings reduces hurt to the ecology. In many cases, it also saves energy, and sometimes it’s possible to save material (and cut costs) by working with usable ancient material.

Always conserve, reuse, and recycle when you can. Burning moldy or rotten material on the site is more economical than wasting energy to haul unusable lumber to landfills. A few pieces of soft plastic can help start the bonfire, but if there is a lot of plastic on the region, choose it in for recycling. Shingles, which won’t burn completely and won’t biodegrade if buried, can now be recycled too. In some places, even drywall recycling programs exist.

Reuse or sell any building materials that are in excellent condition. You, your clients, or your employees may have no immediate exercise for obsolete materials, furniture, books or even newspapers found on the site, but when these items are in usable condition, they are “antiques” and may be valuable.

Don’t try to save money by reusing moldy wood. If it’s hard to tell whether wood is blackened and smells “smoky” due to infection with Stachybotrys fungi (“toxic black mold”) or actual smoke injure, burn it. Excellent news: cheap woods like pine and poplar are more vulnerable to Stachybotrys than considerable woods like oak and chestnut.

For minimal harm to the environment, one man said, “I reckon about the people who built an musty house, why they built it the way they did, and what they would have wanted to do with it. I feel that they’d be tickled to eye the house looking new and solid again. Sometimes you can tell by their work that they would have wanted to expand a building or place in new conveniences.”

Here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, some property owners still rationalize letting ancient buildings rot because “that’s the way Grandpa left it.” We ridiculed this opinion. “Grandpa wanted the best and newest material in 1850. Likely, if he could see that house now, with the paint wearing off, wood rotting, chimney falling down, he’d fabricate sure somebody else got it! He’d want storm windows and screens, chimney caps and dampers, and insulation in the walls, the same device he wanted to invest in oak boards and take the time to build even-sized steps. And if he lived to see his friends grow venerable, he probably would have wanted wide doors and wheelchair ramps, too.”

Most people who wastefully let ancient houses rot and break new ground are probably less concerned about pleasing ancestral spirits than about exploiting loopholes in tax law. But, if you do request input from ancestral spirits about what to do with your property, why not question them about this?

2. Be price-conscious, but don’t cheat yourself.

Don’t leave insulation exposed. Be aware that the paper binding around Fiberglas insulation biodegrades quickly, and Fiberglas is brittle. Microscopic furry animals like to nest in Fiberglas. So, if you don’t hide both sides of the insulation snug and tight, in two or three years anyone entering the attic or basement will be smothered in filthy, itchy Fiberglas dust.

Always build windows to accommodate double panes…especially huge, dramatic, odd-shaped windows. When the outdoor temperature is right, people can open both panes. When the house needs climate control, why blow money out the windows?

Always cap chimneys, install dampers, and leave a pipe hole in case someone wants to install a more efficient airtight stove. Every house needs at least one fireplace. No house needs to blow all the climate control up the chimney when the fireplace is not in exercise.

Allow a reasonable rate of air exchange. We learned in the 1970s that houses that can’t “breathe” quickly become “sick buildings.” Air exchange should, but, be subtle. Hold window and door openings tight to avoid drafts. If possible, build two-door entries that chop the escape of climate-controlled air.

3. Know how many “heating days” and “cooling days” your part of the world gets, and build accordingly. Windows that face south and west let in sun to crop heating expenses. Windows that face north and east block excessive sun and reduce air-conditioning expenses. In most of the United States, trees can be planted so that they’ll shade out the blistering afternoon sun in summer but admit solar heat in winter. In cold areas, a sizable hedge on the north side of the lot can break the winter wind. Light-colored, reflective roofs help keep a house cool. Dark-colored, dull-end roofs help preserve a house warm.

4. Consider building tubs and sinks in such a way that “gray water” can be filtered straight into the garden hose. During long, hot, dry summers, an energy-efficient arrangement for people to icy off is a quick cold shower. Why not exercise the water from all those showers to water plants?

Don’t try to force people to conserve water by building small bathrooms around tiny tubs. Bathrooms and tubs should be wheelchair-accessible and allow colossal people to go freely. Even a slight slope in the bottom of a tub will, but, encourage people who want honest a quick dip to sit at the deep kill. For second and third bathrooms, consider a shower-only station with a sunken floor, and a pull-down bench for wheelchair users who want to seize a shower.

5. Although the sunbleached look is trendy for interior decorating, not all people glimpse their best in sunbleached colors. A roofed space for air-drying clothes without sun-bleaching them is a very earth-friendly thought.

6. Avoid crowding houses together. Crowding is terrible for all living creatures. In warm-blooded species, overcrowding causes irritability, increased aggression, sterility, homosexual behavior in physically normal individuals, impaired immunity, and, if these things fail to thin the population, plagues. No matter how terminate to one another people feel emotionally, they need space to allow airborne germs to die in between bodies.

In some cultures, it’s normal for people to stand close enough to feel one another’s breath when they talk. These cultures tend to be the ones with the lowest life expectancies. In crowded areas where life expectancies are normal, cultures of formality and emotional distance tend to evolve, with etiquette rules like “Never survey at strangers” and “Touch people only in a bedroom or hospital.” Perhaps North Americans value “marvelous” social atmospheres, and willingness to succor our neighbors, because historically we have not been physically close to our neighbors. Except in New York City, and we all know how “friendly” the atmosphere there is…NOT.

Houses for “greenies,” who tend to share and exchange belongings and entertain long-term visitors, are spacious houses. Each individual should have a separate bedroom. At least one room in a house should allow twenty people to sit down in such a way that, if two of them reached out at the same time, they could shake hands.

One man said, “A Habitat for Humanity group offered me a contract to build houses on a lot, but they wanted to place too many houses too close together. I don’t produce slums.” While the word “slum” usually connotes decay as well as crowding, neighborhoods that allow only four or five houses per acre are never going to become slums. People whose houses are well separated are more likely to plant gardens, protect animals, and lead well-organized, earth-friendly lives.

7. Build pool houses rather than open swimming pools. Indoor pools are lower-maintenance for obvious reasons.

Detached, enclosed garages are also a excellent thought. Cars age quicker when they’re exposed to weather, and people are healthier when fumes from cars are filtered out of the human living areas.

8. Even if you’re building a house for resale, always offer people the earth-friendly option. One contractor who specializes in renovations said, “Unless there’s an antique chandelier that’s too pretty to change, I always place fluorescent lights everywhere. They last longer. I like not having to change light bulbs while I’m working on a house.”

Recycled material is available in limited quantities. Some recycled materials are new and untested, but why not take the opportunity to test them when you get one? Look for recycled drywall, recycled-glass wall tiles, recycled-glass or shredded-paper insulation, recycled paint, even recycled wood. What’s sold as recycled wood is not limited to plywood and chipboard these days; this term also includes excellent-quality lumber salvaged from older buildings.

Recycled plastic “lumber” has been used to make outdoor furniture for a long time. Wood that is treated to improve its weather resistance leaches chemicals into the earth when it gets wet, then into the air when it eventually rots and has to be burned. Recycled plastic doesn’t have these terrible qualities. Its main drawback is that the plastic retains its original colors, which melt together; the recycled plastic I’ve seen has been a funky shade of stagnant-pond green. Still, even yuck-green park benches have been around long enough to trigger nostalgic, romantic memories that might help sell a house to some people.

Low-maintenance ground covers like zoysia grass, white clover, and periwinkle, instead of high-maintenance Bermuda grass, will be a huge selling point for all who despise mowing lawns. And, since these ground covers give the place a park or garden-type look anyway, “paving” walkways with wood chips looks right to people who delight in public parks. Public parks have this look for sound reasons. Water sheets off pavement, forms gullies, and erodes topsoil, but it soaks comfortably into the ground under wood chips. Bermuda grass needs to be watered, fertilized, and protected with pesticides, but native ground covers don’t.

Gravel driveways are preferable to asphalt for the same reason that wood chips are preferable to concrete. And if you have the option, you might try to persuade neighbors to keep the asphalt off a gravel road. Runoff is a huge problem in hilly areas. Erosion can submarine houses if road drainage and runoff have been poorly plotted, i.e. adopted without adaptations from road building techniques that work in flat country.

9. When you dig up topsoil, hold on to it and reuse it. If nothing on the site needs building up, use topsoil to make raised beds for featured-attraction flowers and garden crops. If you have a fantastic deal of extra dirt, sell it to someone who needs it.

10. The concept of “business zones” and “residential zones” belongs to the late nineteenth century. In the terrible ancient days when there were no restrictions on the noise and toxicity of factories, people wanted their homes as far away from the factory as possible. This led to the development of early twentieth-century “car culture” in which whole neighborhoods were designed around the thought that homes could now be fifty or a hundred miles from the factory. Now that most of the factories have shut down, most people eventually become office workers, and most office work is done by phone and computer anyway, those long commutes no longer seem like such a nice thought.

While there are still some businesses that nobody would want in a residential neighborhood, progressive thinking for the present century is moving away from the thoughts of zoning and commuting. Affluent North Americans have always looked for houses within walking distance from schools. The trend to watch brings houses within walking distance from stores, offices, libraries, even theatres and restaurants.

As more of us redefine success as owning and growing our own businesses rather than being middle managers in someone else’s business, increasing numbers of home owners are likely to want their living quarters built above or behind rooms they can use as offices, stores, classrooms, clinics, studios, or bakeries. People who want these amenities are also likely to want both the family space and the work space to be baby-friendly and wheelchair-accessible.

For more data about this trend, or just for a excellent read, Katie Alvord’s book Divorce Your Car is recommended to everybody. The book has not generated a web site of its own, but Google says it’s being sold and reviewed at several web sites.

These are the most simple, general thoughts the contractors and I could reckon of. Complete list of things you might want to do? There is no such thing. A Google search, or browsing through back issues of Mother Earth News, will provide masses of thoughts. Enough contractors advertise online that your Google search results will probably start with a long list of ads for companies in your state. If you happen to be in East Tennessee, I can refer you to builders who do excellent work and who will be much more ecological (and economical) than those guys from Nashville. In Nashville, of course, hiring contractors from Nashville would make ecological-economical sense. Otherwise, all I can say here is that your “greenest” option will nearly always be to work with what you have.

Related Posts

• No Related Posts.