A natural, inside and out (eco-remodeling of home efforts)

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-healthy6jan06.story
DESIGN
A natural, inside and out (eco-remodeling efforts)
Once considered the terrain of hippie holdouts, ecologically sensitive thinking has entered the mainstream of home design, building and decorating. In a special issue, we meet a couple who turned a co
By Steven Barrie-Anthony
Times Staff Writer

January 6, 2005

"Feel my windows," Al Rosen tells you. Feel his windows?

But you do, and the floor-to-ceiling glass enclosing Rosen's den and living room is cool to the touch, despite the blazing weather outside. This is triple-glazed glass filled with argon gas, and it lets in sunlight (which saves electricity and lightbulbs) and insulates against heat in the summer and cold in the winter.<snip>

Try a glass of the Rosens' chlorine-free purified water from the low-flow kitchen faucet. Have a seat on the curved blue couch in the sunny living room, built from wheat board and formaldehyde-free foam and upholstered with untreated cotton fabric. Its pillows are filled with kapok, a natural seed fiber.

One glance through the house will tell you that green building isn't the same thing it was a decade ago, when eco-consciousness first began to drift into the corners of the mainstream. There is nothing plain, stark or utilitarian about this 4,000-square-foot house resting on the edge of Mandeville Canyon; instead, sunlight drifting through windows and skylights illuminates an interior landscape constructed of clean, modern lines and infused with vibrant color. It isn't palatial, but neither is it ascetic, not by a long shot.<snip>

The nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council instituted a green certification program in 2000; called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), it certifies building projects using a four-tier rating system. Since its debut, 167 commercial building projects have been LEED certified, which is about 5% of the U.S. new construction market, says Rick Fedrizzi, president of the organization. Schwarzenegger has mandated that all new California government buildings be LEED certified, and other states are considering doing the same. The council plans to unveil a residential LEED certification in mid-2005, which should help the rest of us agree on a definition for "green."<snip>

[papau]

1. Easy non tear down the walls Step by step to a healthier home

www.buildinggreen.com says there's a lot you can do short of opening up the walls.

Lighten up: Replace incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescents. can't tell the difference in light and you'll be saving energy.

Fill in the gaps: Address the leakiness of your home. Bring in a weatherization specialist who pressurizes or depressurizes your house and can plug leaks with caulk and gasketing materials.

Be water wise: Install water-efficient shower heads and faucet aerators in bathrooms to save both water and energy. Your shower is a screw-on fixtures that can be replaced with a high-quality low-flow shower head (about $20) that provides a satisfying aerated stream while using much less water than before.

Lose the fumes: The next time you paint anything, choose paints that produce no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) -zero VOC or with extremely low levels — less than 20 or 30 grams of VOC per liter.

Don't waste heat: Tune up your heating and cooling equipment. Replace filters on air conditioners and heat pumps on gas furnaces. If you heat with oil or natural gas, bring in a technician to check the burner efficiency. You can often boost the efficiency of the heating system by 5% or 10% if it hasn't been tuned up and cleaned recently.

[slor]

2. thanks for posting n/t

I wish I could afford to do this kind of eco-friendly conversion to my house.

[papau]

3. I also wish I could - I blew insulation into walls but still have to sell

the idea that it is a good that the house gets rid of cooking odors so quickly!

Homes built in 1856 for the poor (the house carriage fellow) are not that well built!

[midnight armadillo]

4. There is nothing green about this

4000 sq ft is not green, no matter how much eco-freidnly material is used, unles there are a LOT of people living there, like 10-12. GreenER, perhaps, than standard, but not green in the real sense.

[papau]

5. Why must a rich Green have a small home? - 4,000 sq. feet to prove a

Green concept house sounds like a good deed.

[midnight armadillo]

6. Because of the waste of resources

The article does not mention any children. Assume they have none...that's 2000 sq ft per person. That requires an outlandish amount of resources to be spent on the structure as well as heating and cooling. Massive houses is a big reason why US residents have such a large ecological footprint. When your house is inherently wasteful compared with the use and needs of its residents, its 'greeness' can only be skin deep.