This abandoned 1902 farmhouse is being restored in an eco-friendly and budget-friendly way.
(Joanne Ciccarello/The Christian Science Monitor)Photos (1 of 1)
A late green bloomer – Sheep Dog Hollow renovation
By Alexandra Marks | 10.22.09
OK, so you’ve decided to take the plunge with me and “go green” – or at least as green as possible.
From my last post, you’re now fully advised that some research and up-front money will be needed. (The cliché that “to go green you’re going to need some green” is too worn for even me to use, alas.)
Now comes the next hurdle, which I confess, I have not read about anywhere else. I call it the “green intimidation factor.”
Suddenly, you realize that while you were simply trying to survive, going about your stressed- out life – paying bills and keeping up with the latest in your profession, politics, and all of the intricate demands of family life – there was thriving subculture of “green believers” busily forging a new path to the future.
These are the people who for the past generation or two have been selflessly putting their ideals first, bucking the nation’s conventional dependence on fossil fuels by honing alternative technologies from organic, high-performance spray-foam insulation to super-efficient solar panels that also operate as roof shingles. (OK, I know some profit motive was also involved.)
Even back in the 1970s we all knew (although most of us conveniently forgot) that we’d have to change our basic relationship to fossil fuels. But after all of the energy tax breaks and incentives from the Carter administration were rolled back, it did take some courage to go a genuine green way.
While I knew on some level that this quiet revolution was going on – I do read the papers – the decision to renovate Sheep Dog Hollow in a green manner brought home vividly how “un-green,” even antediluvian I am, at least in environmental terms.
To put this realization into context, let me assure you that I usually consider myself a well-educated, progressive thinker-type with at least a vague environmental awareness.
I studiously sort my paper, plastics, glass, and metals and recycle them. I’ve always done my best not to waste energy, turning off lights when I leave a room (usually), never turning the heat up too high (unless I was absolutely freezing), and walking instead of driving (which I confess was easy most of the time, since I live mostly in New York City).
But with the limited research I’ve done so far, I now see I wasn’t close to living a even a pale green life – to say nothing of a genuinely green life. And that mortifying realization that you’re really not what you thought you were – at least in environmental terms - is what I call “the green Intimidation factor.”
After a day or two of feeling fairly inadequate, wasteful, and like an unrecovered oil addict, I decided that the best way to deal with it was to simply get over it and get on with it.
And this brings me to LEED and the US Green Building Council. It’s a nonprofit group of community leaders in the environmental and building trades that has been working for years to make going green easy – and, some day, genuinely affordable. Its goal is stated simply: “to make green buildings available to everyone within a generation.”
This is the group that pioneered the first “green rating” system (which is called LEED, for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) that is now generally accepted as the gold standard – or platinum, as it were – of energy-efficient building.
Think of it as a more sophisticated “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”
The group’s site is full of vital information – such as how to go about contacting green building experts, where to find green building products and lists of available courses as well as lots of fun facts about the impact of going green.
For instance, did you know that: “Buildings in the United States are responsible for 39 percent of CO2 emissions, 40 percent of energy consumption, 13 percent of water consumption, and 15 percent of GDP per year, making green building a source of significant economic and environmental opportunity. Greater building efficiency can meet 85 of future U.S. demand for energy, and a national commitment to green building has the potential to generate 2.5 million American jobs.”
Now, unless you’re heavily invested in oil stocks, I think that would be hard to argue with. (But please, do if you’d like to, I’m always willing to learn … post away!)
So no longer suffering from “the green intimidation factor,” I am not only ready, but excited, to move on.
Next: Is It Really Worth It to Hire a Green Expert or Should You Try to Do It Yourself?
Editor’s note: Alexandra Marks will be blogging twice a week about her green and budget-friendly restoration of a 1902 farmhouse in Connecticut. See a photo gallery of the early days of the project by clicking here.
You’ll find numerous articles about the environment at the Monitor’s main environment page. Also, check out our Bright Green blog archive and our RSS feed.
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2. Simon | 10.24.09
Energy efficiency, including insulation, air sealing, efficient lighting, heating system tuneups (or perhaps replacement, depending on what you have) will be some of the more cost effective retrofit measures. In addition to energy efficiency, indoor air quality must be addressed in a coordinated way through a whole-house assessment to ensure health and safety. The Building Performance Institute (bpi.org) standards for home performance assessments address this well (they are a non-profit, third-party certification organization.) Installing air sealing, insulation, new equipment and appliances, etc. without the right evaluation of current conditions, and the right understanding of the interaction between energy, indoor air quality, and moisture can result in hazards including carbon monoxide and mold. And I respectfully disagree with the reader comment from Chris — solar energy systems (hot water or photovoltaics) do work in the CT climate.
3. JimC | 10.26.09
“And this brings me to LEED and the US Green Building Council. It’s a nonprofit group of community leaders in the environmental and building trades that has been working for years to make going green easy”
“Environmental and building trades” - trades? Are we so naive to think that “building trades” organized nationwide might not have an agenda to further their profit margins just as Walmart does?
The site mentioned shows this groups “affiliates” and “chapters.”
http://www.usgbc.org/Chapters/AffiliateList.aspx?CMSPageID=188
http://www.usgbc.org/Chapters/ChapterList.aspx?CMSPageID=1751
They are far from “community leaders.” They’re nation wide and I am chagrined at the implication that they are called “community leaders.”
These “community leader” aka “community organizer” groups give the impression of “small community.” When in fact they are often nation wide organizations with an agenda akin to big business.
If you dig through their site to their “member directory” you find groups such as “Common Ground Community.”
http://www.usgbc.org/myUSGBC/Members/MembersDirectory.aspx?PageID=1550&CMSPageID=140
Common Ground Communitie’s goal, as stated in the video on their site, is to BUILD housing for the homeless. Do you think perhaps that “building trades” could possibly have an agenda here? Just click on the link provided, scroll down to “Common Ground Communities” go to their site and watch the video for yourself if you doubt what I’m saying.
Some of these “groups” are very sophisticated in their approaches to garner tax monies and donations for their agendas. One would hardly call Walmart a “community store” given it’s largess. Why do we dignify other nationwide groups, some with as far reaching tentacles, in such a manner?
And, please, those tired old addages, “you’re just a racist” or “you just hate poor people” don’t work. This is big business, not community organizing.
We need to be careful about labeling nationwide organizations as “community organizers” and “community leaders” to avoid being duped.
4. Dave England | 10.26.09
As the proud owner of a house built in 1683 (that’s no typo), I welcome Ms. Marks to her new adventure. I recommend checking out that old movie, “The Money Pit,” for laughs, then documenting your own follies. You will have some.
I learned three things while restoring my place: (1) if you want to do six things but can afford to do only four, do the four right and let the other two wait until later. (You will get to them.) If you try to do five or six on the budget for four, you will be dissatisfied with all of them and every day you look at them, you will remember what you really wanted to do but now have too much money invested to tear them up; (2) take pictures of every wall and notch you intend to seal up, especially those areas where you intend to put pipes or wiring. You may revisit those later and it will be of immense help to anyone who comes after your original craftsmen to see what they did before they tear into the wall again; (3) do everything you can to restore the original windows, including the glass. New windows dramatically change (adversely) the look of an old house. Old windows can be made energy efficient, but it takes finding someone who knows how to do it, and these people exist.
As to on-demand heating, I installed a gas-fired tankless water heater when my tank heater had 12 years on it and was getting long in the tooth. It has worked fine, once the hot water arrives, but avoid long piping to the outlets. You may find yourself using more water while saving heating costs. There are small, electrically-powered heaters that can be installed under sinks and behind baths/showers that not only produce ample amounts of hot water, but do so instantly. Compared with the the central heating systems, they’re price competitive.
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1. Chris | 10.24.09
Hi,
Just a couple of thoughts that might make a difference for a project like this:
I would focus on reducing energy consumption using simple techniques.
Put lots of insulation in the walls. Once the walls are closed in it is too late to add more.
Don’t have water supply lines in the outside walls where they could freeze.
You might want to consider closing off part of the house in the Winter to save energy. Design it that way so it is easy to drain the pipes in that part of the house, etc.
Solar collectors don’t work well in cloudy cold Connecticut.