Green / Natural / High Performance Bldg?
Whats in a name? It seems like we have three threads running in the alternative building area these days.
High Performance builders are working with building science principles to maximize the performance of homes moving towards zero energy super energy star with good indoor air and water conservation.
Green Builders are pushing conventional building systems and financing options towards a new whole-house best practice paradigm driven bu rating systems such as LEED-h and NAHBgreen along with Earth Craft and almost 200 local scoring systems.
Natural Building is basically ignoring the conventional financing route in favor of building extremely low cost, local, energy efficient and even sculptural homes that may incorporate organic elements that would make a building scientist cringe and would likely not fit within the parameters of the green building scoring systems.
Clearly folks from all three disciplines are cross pollinating and sharing ideas and inspiration. My question is:
How can we bring the three threads into closer proximity to enhance the sharing of ideas, tips, and skills?
I spent a weekend at Yestermorrow design-build school up in Vermont recently and it seems like they are trying to teach all three disciplines at the same campus and it’s an interesting puzzle. Clearly they are different, but the aim is similar.
Natural builders seem not to worry too much about mold and moisture which makes me worry about durability. High performance builders don’t seem to worry too much about the budget, aesthetics, or how to justify the cost.
Green builders seem to focus more on what the market will buy and can finance and are willing to sacrifice some performance and beauty to meet the market.
I just hired a natural builder to work with my green building company that bleeds over slightly into the high performance paradigm. It’s interesting to see the difference in his approach.
Honestly I’m not sure where I’m going with this but I wanted to open a discussion and se where it leads.
m
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“You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate.”
Replies
How can we bring the three threads into closer proximity to enhance the sharing of ideas, tips, and skills?
Forums such as this one for starters. To really get the juices flowing, it would take unbiased national leadership to bring the various parties to the same table. As long as big energy and big finance continue to pull many of the striings in Washington, there is little hope that anything progressive or innovative will get any traction.
I was in the Bahamas some time back and got to muse on this in an unofficial way, before BT existed. <g>
I saw a lot of half-done walls of CMUs, left at the stage they were in when the Brits ceded jurisdiction. If you got near one, you could just feel the heat radiating from it. The locals built shacks that the breeze blew through, which began rotting as soon as they were nailed together.
No doubt the Brits faulted the local for not building to last. No doubt the locals shook their heads at the Brits building durable ovens to inhabit.
Somehow, building ovens that need to be air-conditioned seems not to be the synthesis of both worlds.
I absolutely agree that there is huge potential for the various disciplines to learn from each other. The local's shacks could have benefited from better roofs with radiant barriers and big overhangs and good flashings. The Brits were certainly not green or high performance with their cinder block shanties. They could have riffed on the local shacks and added heat towers and hurricane bracing. I live in a three story green home that has a heat tower for the master bedroom wing and no AC (solar radiant though) so it's kind of a blend of green and natural on the no-AC level. (but we have AC in the great room and laundry and we use a clothes line for a dryer.) It's the musing that I'm after though. Where are the possibilities, where are the pitfalls. We've been battling with the banking industry to allow people to finance solar hot water and electric on their mortgages. It's actually very difficult to even get them to give market value appraisal for spray foam and storm water retention. So they are choking the innovation. The home-owners insurance industry won't grant replacement value coverage to solar panels without a major battle. So we can pretty well guess that they won't go for cob or straw bale. And we can install radiant floors only if they are listed as supplemental heat with a conventional heat pump back up listed as primary. So the message is that green is great if your paying cash. I speak to these guys a fair bit at their conferences and they are a dark and stony bunch. I spent a week last summer and another last fall in DC working on the national green building standard task group. It was infested with lobbyists from the steel and concrete industries among others. Glad I was there, the good guys did definitely out number the bad but there were many pitched battles and we certainly lost our share (green log homes, green steel studs, etc.) If we get all three groups together our numbers and power are still puny compared to the big builders. But if we really dig into working together to find and build affordable, finance-able, homes we can lead by example and infiltrated the dominant paradigm. ------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
There is a certain irony in folks who wish to be more self-sufficient accepting the bank as the arbiter of what they may build. Banks may be choking innovation, but a lack of imagination gives it the coup de grâce.Old plan books are full of house plans that could be added onto as the family grew or fortunes improved. It seems to me this urge to have one's dream home appear on a bare lot in a few months is just one more instance of the culture not supporting its appetite. I'm certainly not lumping you in with tract builders in style or craftsmanship, but you seemed to have fallen into a similar instant gratification expectation that fuels behemoths like Gunner's, which enslaves one to a job or a mortgage. If i were your client with my small budget, i'd pay you and DW to include as much of my architectural bucket list as i could comfortably afford in a house that would probably be much smaller or simpler than it will eventually become. I would pay out of pocket for the items the bank wouldn't finance. I would come back to you as my equity/income increased to embellish on the master plan you had created. Instead of once-and-done, couldn't you design for a house built truly on the installment plan?
Point well taken. And for what it's worth Beth and I do have a policy that we don't build homes over 3,000 sq ft but I can imagine that sounds like a joke to you. It means that we don't build for the filthy rich, only for the comfortably well-off and we've turned down several millionaires recently. We used to design homes to be phased and we just did one for an owner builder with a designed in three phase plan. But that mentality has certainly fallen off in recent years. My mother recently admonished me for adding yet another structure to my place (the dance studio) saying I was going to run out of build-able land soon. But most of my clients are as you describe, "give me the dream house now and I'll live with the payments."The culture is broken and needs help big time. perhaps the current banking crises is bitter medicine too big and too late. What we're calling "burning the barn after the horse is gone." be wellDo I get to call you Splintie yet? M------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
<<we don't build homes over 3,000 sq ft but I can imagine that sounds like a joke to you>>Hmmm...not sure what you mean; 3000 sf means little without context. I have 3000 feet here, but it includes my downstairs shop, which i built to be easily converted to other uses for a family. I also have four acres, bec i absolutely require a buffer strip around me. I desired trees, too, but i can't afford forested property so i'm growing them. The point is, i prioritized my needs and then cut the list off at what i could afford. The house costs an average of $125/mo elec and gas, which i think is way too high. Looking into solar heat... If your "comfortably well-off" clients can't afford the energy-efficient upgrades out of their own pockets, why conspire with them to convince the banks to extend credit which the buyers can't afford? How did the culture get broken, anyway? Speaking of "crisis is bitter medicine"...i'm inspired that the Katrina disaster occasioned the invention of the Katrina Cottage, designs that combine grace and economy and profit to boot - they have a porch! - though they cost about the same as a FEMA trailer, $35K. There is a lesson for both the architect and the technician in that success story.You can call me "Splintie" and i can call you "Shel". Sounds like a Paul Simon song, no? ;^)
Hey SplintieI was thinking about you this evening. My bride had designed a totally sweet mountain vacation house for a friend of ours with five kids and a nice house who just fell in love with and bought a chunk of dirt on top of a mountain in Virginia. They came to us with a dream house picture and wanting to build a super energy house for the family to "bond" in as they went through high school and college. She gave them everything they asked for and it was about 100K over budget. They sent us back to trim and we just couldn't cut it down enough to fit and still meet their needs. So I pitched a three phase approach and Beth drew it up on their kitchen table. A single bath first floor master with a loft kid pit and two planned additions for when the kids get older. They loved it and it looks like we'll be able to do it minimal timber frame on a radiant slab with SIP cladding within their budget. So I was thinking about this conversation and wanted to send a note on my return. The old three phase design approach still sells. be wellShel------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Thanks for the story. I'm glad the clients didn't insist on cheaper materials to save the square footage - the way most of those dream homes seem to go...or went. Just curious...are they getting financing? I'm reflecting on the banking issues we discussed, about whether they were able to get support for the energy efficiencies or if they're paying for that out of pocket.
they'll be going for financing once we get the plans drawn up. But haven't applied yet. Our local Green Building council has a small group working on being proactive with the local bankers and appraisers esp since we're getting new appraisal guidelines on December first. In the past a banker could cultivate a relationship with an appraiser who was a green / solar specialist for all their green / solar projects. If the appraiser had problems with comps the banker could steer them to similar projects. On December first it goes to a blind hand-off system where the banker will give the appraisal package to an independant third party appraisal referral service who will hand it off to the appraiser chosen solely on the appraisers geographical proximity to the site. So if we're building a small footprint house with twelve inch thick walls, solar heated radiant slab floors, stucco siding, and a tin roof in east podunk north carolina (such as the one we're about to start) it will get handed off to whichever appraiser lives closest to east podunk. This person may well think a house of this description is weird and lacks re-sale value and may appraise it at 40 cents on the dollar. As it happens that house which we are about to start can only be built if the owner brings 50% cash to the closing. And that is under the current "green friendly" appraisal system with a special consideration of $1,000 paid to the appraiser to compensate them for the extra complexity of the appraisal. The owners approached Suntrust bank and were just flatly turned down as "the house is too un-conventional to fit within our underwriting guidelines for any loan whatsoever" This is what we have to look forward to, build 'Light green' or work for rich folks who can afford to tell the banks to take a hike. The banking industry is about to put the screws to high performance builders. We're working on finding solutions but it feels kind of grim. ------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
I'm not normally tuned to look on the bright side so i may be out of my depth here, but...if the banks are being so recalcitrant, and the demand is there for greener houses, isn't there a market niche crying to be filled for houses designed to garner conventional financing at 80%, to which the HO can piggyback on their alternative energy sources with their own money, as opposed to showing up at closing with 50% down?F'instance, i'm supposing that an appraiser has no trouble understanding extra insulation in the walls and will buy the overhang on the roof as a design feature, but would balk at solar heating. So you finance the walls and a $1300 Seisco boiler for the RFH...extra cost for the boiler, but you manage to get the main components of the RFH system in place with financing, needing just to piggyback the owner-supplied solar collectors onto it. It's not a bad idea for rural folks especially to have redundant systems, even though there's more overall expense. I suspect it's just about impossible to finance something off the grid, but i look at it from a bank's perspective at their chances of selling such a house. I know two couples with houses off the grid and frankly, the wives don't know how to run the places that their husbands built. One told me if anything happened to her husband, she'd just have to move. In both families, the husband works at home and can maintain systems while the wives have jobs in the outside world.
ShelterNerd,
There is a way to avoid the banks definitions and rules while building as you seek.
My home was built using credit cards.. interest free credit cards.. 90 days 6 months a year etc. What I'd do is roll the balance over onto another card when the first one was due..
When I reached various milestones I went into the bank for a home equity loan and started over again..
Requires disipline and attention to payments etc.. However you can build whatever you want without loan committtes approval or even submission of blueprints or plans..
The deal is that I've got two houses going and two more coming out of the ground, all for clients, not for myself. I don't see myself pitching a credit card and home equity loan system to my clientele. Might still work for owner builders though but all the banking rules are tightening up so hard that I'm thinking that this system wouldn't probably work so good these days. ------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
ShelterNerd,
It still does if you have excellant credit. Credit card companies inundate those with excellant credit with various offers in an attempt to entrap them in their system.. that's why I gave the caviot that I did..
Absolutely true that it isn't for professionals with lines of credit at a bank. In a way it's like borrowing money from a loan shark.
It's in a banks interest to work out problems with long term clients to retain them. However credit card companies are quick to jump and attempt to collect from private individuals. With the changes in bankruptcy laws as a private individual you can't get off simply by declaring bankruptcy anymore.. That solution is really only left for big corporations..
Now back to your coments about building green and those seeking high tech solutions, those "artisains" who choose to build using local products and etc. I feel that the way I built my home does qualify for several of those techniques..
I built it using the most energy efficent means I could.. The results agreed with me.. it's more than twice as large yet my energy bills are less than half of previous inspite of the increases in energy costs. This using the same furnace from the original house! Further decreases in energy consumption will be forthcoming.. (I haven't really spent anytime properly sealing up the house, plus I'll be going from a primary forced air furnace to in floor radiant heat)
In addition 95% or more of the wood I used in my home was purchased locally from locally grown trees.. It went from a farmers woodlot, to the local sawmill ,to my truck and to my house. Where I converted it from rough green timbers to a finished home.. In addition the interior finish is virtually all shellac which as you know is natural, sustaining, and fully biodegradeable..
Further the home was built primarily with decay resistant hardwoods and massive over built including structural strength sufficent for me to believe that the worst possible events (tornados) will have no structural effects on me..
That means the home is sustainable. It should be in place long enough for sufficent replacement trees to grow to replace those that were harvested.. The trees I used were either at or past their normal lifetime. That means that instead of those trees decaying in the woodlot adding to the earths carbon burden I've harvested them and they will be encapsilated in this house for a very long time..
Frenchy
sounds like you build a beautiful and sustainable home.
My bank (Suntrust) that I have my $50K line of credit with, and have for several years with no problems or delinquincy just called the line on me and called lines on most builders in town putting several out of business. these were folks who were current on payments with excellent credit, myself included.
I asked why they were calling my note and they just said "Your type of business no longer meets our guidelines for credit. You can re-apply as an architecture firm and we'll be happy to work with you but as a builder we can no longer loan you money"
They are just running scared because so many of their loans are going upside down on them and they want to llimit their exposure by pulling in whatever cash they can get ahold of. What we call "Burning down the barn after the horse is gone." Many folks are pledging never to do business with Suntrust ever again. But the smaller banks are also having trouble.
Strange new world.
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Man after my own heart. My wife and I did the same thing a few years ago when we built our new house. We had our equity in hand from selling a previous house ... invested in e.g. muni bonds at like 8%. Went to work on the house. Everything on credit cards w/ special offers. As one offer ran out ... we swapped to another bank/card.
It does require some discipline ... the details can trip you up if you're not careful. Need to screen the offers carefully and keep track of the due dates, etc. Between 8-12 cards, we got the bulk of our house built ... all the while getting income from our bonds ... then started cashing in blocks of the bonds to pay off our free loans. In the end we still had to get a home equity loan for the balance.
Doesn't seem like we get the offers like we used to. Banks getting wise to their own marketing scheme. One big potential pitfall was the fee they charged for 0 interest. If you weren't careful, that fee would effectively result in e.g. 6-8% APR on that $ you drew out. One rule we had: do not use the card after you've got the 'loan' as the new purchases would draw interest until you paid the loan off.
Interesting your view/definitions of each category. Not the way I might/have envisioned them for myself.
I consider High Performance to be: very energy/operation efficient and aesthetic ... but like you said ... pricey, MAYBE.
Another view of natural is minimizing active systems not just using natural materials, maybe. Also, using the natural materials (e.g. strawbale) should not make a building scientist cringe (IMO) ... it's just different material and we humans have the power to apply the material in innovative ways so that they don't result in the problems you speak of (e.g. mold/moisture). It's just different materials, we just have to raise our knowledge level and apply them better.
Green I consider having a focus on the overall environmental thing - renewable materials, recycled materials, and lack of high tech substances (e.g. coatings w/ VOCs, or materials w/ VOC based glues, etc). Your view that they are a marketing thing ("what the market will buy") is interesting. I DO NOT share your notion that green means something less aesthetic or performs in an inferior way (as a GENERAL rule). I consider many 'green' products drop dead gorgeous (e.g. bamboo flooring) AND durable (ditto bamboo).
Ultimately this is ALL good stuff ... we need to continue to work all the angles for better products, designs, and construction. It's better than the mainstream cookie cutter approach that tends to drive the bulk of the market ... but it's changing slowly w/ the higher demand, as you said, for 'doing things better'.
Like anyone, you seem to have wrapped your arms around a lot of this. There is a lot to take in ... now you want to simplify (don't we all). No answers ... just more questions for now, I think.
Great topic!! We all need to talk this stuff ... and walk it more and more.
"I spent a weekend at Yestermorrow design-build school up in Vermont recently and it seems like they are trying to teach all three disciplines at the same campus and it's an interesting puzzle."
What class did you take and when ? I teach about 8 different classes at Yestermorrow. Did we meet?
Yestermorrow began as an attempt to teach architects how to build and builders how to design - to integrate those two disciplines.
It has long had a focus on efficient and creative design and construction technique, but at its 25th anniversary a few years ago it committed itself to become the leading center for education in sustainable building (which is my focus).
Sustainable building encompasses what you see as three different trends. The difference is somewhat on the specific focus but also in philosophy. The high performance builders are still addicted to technology. The green builders are working with a broader set of paradigms. And the natural builders are the most radical (as in "to the roots"), reviving ancient and indigenous building traditions and revising them to fit our modern lifestyles - and leaving the smallest footprint on the earth, which is ultimately what sustainability requires.
Solar & Super-Insulated Healthy Homes
Robert, he saw you but you were involved at the time.
I was up visiting Bob Ferris, you were eating lunch outside on a picnic table, I walked up and introduced myself as "shelternerd from Breaktime forum" and shook your hand, said something about having many disagreements or we didn't think alike about building science or some such and headed on. You were busy having lunch with your class. Be wellm------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Part of the confusion for me is that all three of the areas you name - "green/natural/high performance" - are worthy pursuits. Admirable.
I guess for me, it's not so important to distinguish between the them or decide which techniques fall into which category. For me it's more about making the most responsible decision on what techniques or materials to use, regardless of what others call them.
How do I make those decisions? What are the underlying philosophies that guide me? How do I justify sacrificing one ideal to serve another?
To me those are the hard questions.
Ultimately I will have to make those choices myself. It's my responsibility to study, and discuss, and ponder, and experiment, and monitor those experiments and study the results and be willing to recognise my failures as well as my sucesses.
JimI'm with you on that, sort of wishing one one hand that they would all run together more and on the other seeing that they each have a role to play in the multifaceted way we build homes. The natural building stuff seems not so well suited to a production builder as to an owner builder and seems weighted to low material cost (and low life cycle cost) at the expense of higher labor cost and more potential future maintenance cost. The green building seems more focused on educating existing builders on the numerous different ways of optimizing the impact of buildings on their occupants, communities and the planet while still working within the trade partnership paradigm our industry is comfortable with. The high performance to me tweaks the green building by pushing the limits on energy performance and durability and indoor air quality. I know some production builders are moving into high performance but it seems more the world of the small custom builders such as my company who only build four or five houses a year. Food for thought, different animals in the same zoo.------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
"I was up visiting Bob Ferris, you were eating lunch outside on a picnic table, I walked up and introduced myself as "shelternerd from Breaktime forum" and shook your hand, said something about having many disagreements or we didn't think alike about building science or some such and headed on. You were busy having lunch with your class."
Yeah, I vaguely remember that encounter. What class did you take? And what did you think of it?
Riversong HouseWright
Design * * Build * * Renovate * * ConsultSolar & Super-Insulated Healthy Homes
I didn't take any classes, just visited with Bob and toured some of the architecture of the valley with him.------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."