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(Click HERE to see the green home design shown above)

 

Building a green home with your carbon footprint in mind is key:

Building a green home is a key step to reducing your carbon footprint.  Here in the USA we are about 5% of the world’s population, but we use about 25% of the world’s energy, and much of the energy used has a significant carbon footprint.

Hearing that we're leading the world in energy consumption is nothing new, but the entire world is now striving to be like the USA in their standard of living, consumerism, and energy consumption. If we stay on this carbon based energy trajectory, we will need 9 planets to sustain humans here... which, of course, is not an option.

There is a lot you can do to reduce your carbon foot when you build a new home.  There are also advantages to remodeling your existing home or office building and preserving the embodied energy in that existing structure.

 

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 ANOTHER LIKE THIS: How to Incorporate Embodied Energy into Your Green Building Designs

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Buildings are the largest energy user in the US.

Reducing your home’s energy use is the first and most important factor. This reduces your carbon footprint and saves you money at the same time. It is a win-win, and there are so many ways to conserve energy and reduce your home's carbon footprint!

 

1. Long Term Implications

Think about how long a building would last to provide the greatest return on energy and resources invested. "Forever" is a good time-frame, right?

Of course, "forever" is not possible, but it should stand for many decades, and possibly a century or more. Why not? At least the building envelope itself should. Maybe it's remodeled and repurposed over time, but if we think "long term" at the outset, we're much more likely to end up with something that lasts.

Work with your architect to develop an energy saving design from the beginning of the design process.  Use their expertise to help determine where to spend your construction dollars most effectively. 

 

2. Building orientation

Use proper building orientation, a well-insulated and air tight wall and roof system, great windows and doors, and an extremely efficient heating and cooling system that exceeds the code minimum requirements. 

The orientation itself could have huge implications depending on which direction its facing, where your resources are, and some other environmental and emotional drivers. If you're working with an architect that has "sustainability" woven into everything they do, there's very likely a deeper investment in things like getting the orientation of your building to minimize to your carbon footprint and overall personal well-being incorporated into the design.

 

3. Size Matters

Another important factor of your carbon footprint is to control the overall size of the home.

I know it's hard for some to leave room on the table when it exists, but you'll thank me on this later... Do not build more square footage than you need to be comfortable. It has as much to do with being green as the materials and systems.

In fact, the LEED for Homes green building rating system has guidelines for sizing your home, based on the number of bedrooms you need.  LEED has recommended limits to the square footage and rewards you for staying under the limits or penalizes you for going over the limits, on a per bedroom basis.  

This approach makes a lot of sense when you think about it.   If you were to make your home twice as big as it needs to be, and then make it 50% more efficient, you really have not gained anything if terms of energy use reduction or carbon footprint reduction.  

Work with your architect to program the spaces and functions of your home carefully so there is no wasted space.       

 

4. Location, location, location

Where you build your home is another very important factor. The energy and carbon footprint of transportation is the second largest use of energy in the US. Build in a dense area, near to where you work and near to the conveniences you need, such as grocery stores and other services you use all the time. 

Living in the sprawl of suburbia has huge carbon footprint implications.  Commuting back and forth from suburbia to work and services as one person in one car uses a lot of energy and wastes of time.  Put a value on your time.  If you can’t live close to work and services, the next best option is to live near and use public transportation such as subway, light rail and bus services.

Also, water plays another big role in your location. There is a great deal of energy used to treat water to drinkable standards, and to treat the waste water that is discharged into the sewer system.  Remember water = energy usage = carbon footprint.

Also, living in a dense area that already has infrastructure such as central water and sewer service in place reduces the carbon footprint of having to create all that infrastructure and extend it from its current service boundaries. 

 

5. Systems

Once you have built a very energy efficient home, and it is as small as practical, supplementing the energy your home uses with onsite renewable sources is the next step to further reduce your carbon footprint.

Use systems such as photo voltaic panels (to make your own electricity), hydroelectric (creating electricity from the flow of water), solar thermal (using the sun to heat water for you), geothermal (using the ground temperature to aid in heating and cooling your home) and/or wind energy (residential style windmills) to provide your own clean energy directly for your home. 

With these systems you don’t have the transmission losses of a grid distributed energy system, and you are not at risk for paying rising energy prices. 

Again, work with your architect to fully integrate these energy producing and saving features into the design of your new home (hopefully they know these options well). Your design team can also evaluate the return on investment (ROI) of these systems to better understand the life cycle cost implications of installing these systems.

 

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CONCLUSION:

Many of your choices to reduce your home’s carbon footprint are free.  Where you build, how much you build, the orientation of the home, and how you utilize the natural attributes of your site are all free choices. While adding alternative on-site energy sources such as PV Panels or solar thermal to your project may add additional first cost,  if properly integrated into the design, these systems can pay you back (ROI) more than their cost to initially install.  

The most important thing is to work closely with your design team to develop comprehensive design solution that incorporates all the carbon foot print reducing features you desire in your new home.  Do it right and you can reduce your carbon footprint, save money, and move to a more sustainable existence without sacrificing comfort and quality in your life.

Interested in learning more about how to design YOUR green home and reduce your carbon footprint? Schedule a free consultation with Carlson Studio today!

Want more resources on building a green home? Try this ebook on for size!

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Sustainable home design intuitively points toward saving the planet, but what you may not know is that you're actually saving yourself.

Green Build 2015 in Washington DC just finished up. It was the 13th straight USGBC Green Build Conference I attended since its humble but powerful beginning in 2002. With nearly 30,000 attendees today, the conference is starting turn heads in more than just the architectural community, and it was really exciting to see so much enthusiasm for sustainability.

 

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I have often argued that humankind and nature are not separate, and that when we say we want to save the planet, our interests are actually much more self-centered than that. The planet is going to be fine, and it can and WILL take care of itself.  It may need to make adjustments that we don't like in order to heal, which may impact the way of life we are clinging to.

Deepak Chopra, our opening speaker, was actually very clear on this point. He said that we are literally one with the environment, and that there is no separation from ourselves and it. From the smallest code in our DNA to the planet, to the Universe, we are all made of the same stuff. 

There were many inspiring education sessions this year, but two really stuck out to me. The first is Barry Svigals, Architect - whose topic was “The Seeds of a Renewed Commitment."

Mr. Svigals’ firm designed the replacement school for the Sandy Hook Elementary school in Monroe, Connecticut.  This is what he had to say:

 

1. a global crisis exists on two fronts

Both natural and social ecologies are in crisis.  Citing Henk Ovink, of the Netherlands, who believes we don't have the will to solve our problems right now, he stated that this is an ongoing topic.

Can we solve our own problems before the natural and social ecology crises cause devastating effects on our lives?  Do we have the foresight to act now in a pro-active manner, or are we destined to react when our efforts will be less effective and more costly?

 

2. who we are and how we do matter

It's not just what we do, but how we participate in what we do that makes a difference.  There is no "THEY".  There is only us.  Mr. Svigals talked about social affection that occurred natural in the US during the early days of this country.  There were social networks where everyone cared for everyone.  He gave the example of John and Abigail Adams who were famous for their social affection.

As he spoke of the design for the New Sandy Hook School it was inspiriting to hear the community has chosen to rebuild their school and their sense of community based on goodness, hope, love, and openness.  Remembering the tragedy, one would not blame them if they wanted to build a bunker, a fortress, or a prison to separate the outside world from their students.  But that would be a perspective of fear, and they instead opted for hope.  

 

“We will not protect what we do not love”
- Barry Svigals

 

The second architect I heard speak was Sarah Susanka, author of The Not So Big House.  I have always been interested in this topic, and have advocated to build the correct amount of space, and no more, a core theme to the book.

If you are familiar with the LEED for Homes Rating System from the USGBC, you'll know that one can receive bonus points for a home smaller than a size determined by the LEED standard, and is penalized for building something larger. This is based on the number of bedrooms the home will have, so a 2 bedroom home as a different square footage goal than a 5 bedroom home.

Interestingly, our current Birch Haven Residence project is seeking LEED for homes platinum certification. It has 5 bedrooms, but exceeds the recommend square footage in the LEED system, so we are absorbing some negative penalty credits due to the size.  It is forcing us to make the home more efficient in other ways to make up the difference and still get to Platinum level certification. 

Ms. Susanka believes everyone is searching for a sense of ”Home” built better not bigger; built to last, built to inspire,  built for how we really live. Current trends she is seeing include no formal living room, and no formal dining room.  These spaces no longer get much use because they do not fit the way we live.  Her recommendation is to build 1/3 less space than you think you need, and put every SF in use every day. 

Ms. Susanka has written a new book entitled The Not So Big Life: Making Room for What Really Matters, which she also spoke in great detail about in her lecture. In her book she describes how we reach our full potential, by doing simple things like putting ourselves on the calendar (make time for our own growth), and looking with the eyes of a student (everything is a learning opportunity that should be seen in a fresh light).  Ask yourself, “What can I learn about this thing in my life?”  Drop the reaction, and think what I can learn from this- See that the world is reflecting ourselves back to us.

 

NOW is the only time.  Prior is remembering, future is projecting.  Be present.  We can change things faster than we think we can.

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CONCLUSION:

The reality is that when we say we want to save the planet, we are, in effect, saying that we prefer self-preservation over extinction, because it's true... nature will find a way to get back on course, and she's not going to make it easy on us. In fact, the more we tear her apart, the more healing will be necessary.

If we look around us and take inventory on what we can change today, we might be able to preserve ourselves for a little while longer.

Carlson Studio Architecture prides itself on being green to the core. Interested in learning more? Schedule a free apppointment today!

Ready to kick off your green home design? Check out this free resource to help you get it going:

 

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