Building Green Structures

As a green consumer looking for countertops for your kitchen, bathroom, or even tables, there are many composite countertop options available.  You can find composite countertops that are made out of a great variety of raw materials, including recycled glass, paper, and concrete.  The composites are held together with products such as natural water-based resins and concrete.  These products are not only great alternatives because they help to provide a healthy home environment through the use of non-toxic materials, but they also use materials that are recycled, waste products, and/or bi-products.  Ensure that if you are purchasing a glass composite countertop and want an earth-friendly option, ensure that it is not fused, as these are not recycled.  Keep in mind that paper composites usually contain a very small amount of formaldehyde as a binder, but when finished, it is undetectable.  Also note that while concrete is considered to be very non-environmentally friendly in terms of manufacturing processes, it does not have any toxic qualities as an end product.

Composite countertops vary widely in price.  In general they fall into these categories:  glass composites range from $95.00-$100/sq foot depending on sheet size, and paper composites range from $42.00/sq foot-$60.00/sq. foot depending on thickness and sheet size.  

There are quite a few blog posts here about building, but less on interior furnishings etc. Appliances are definiately something worth talking about. I am sure most people have heard about the energy star ratings on appliances. They are very helpful in determining the most efficient products out there. However, what about the appliances that are sitting at home? Is there anything wrong with using them until they literally break?  Yes and no.  Appliances that are 15-20 years old should most likely be recycled.  If they are resold, that will just mean it is going to continue to suck energy at a higher rate in a different location.  The older machines do just that, they use more energy to do the same job.  When you are purchasing a new appliance, the establishment that you are getting it from should take the old one away to be properly recycled.  Yes, it will mean that it will be going to a landfill, but they can do the best job of making sure it has the least amount of negative impact on the earth.  If you are purchasing a used but not old appliance, there are local governmental recycling programs you can check out.  If you do decide to upgrade your appliance, you will generally save between 10-50% on the energy costs of the new versus old appliance.

When a structure is built, specifically the large commercial buildings, part of the cost is the cost of tearing down the structure.  This to me is so crazy!  And what made me want to write a post about it is something that happened right here in the town I am in.  There is a regional chain that is basically like a Home Depot, except, like I said, regional.  Within the past month, the old store has closed down, been torn down, and the new one already has a very large section of the cement shell built.  They are building a much bigger store, so I do not understand why they just did not build an addition.  Environmentally, an addition makes a lot more sense.  Plus the old building, which was still in great shape and function, was completely thrown away.  I personally think there is something seriously wrong with this thinking that we can just continue to do this.

Green architecture and sustainability sort of go hand-in-hand.  When working towards making a structure environmentally friendly, if you are also keeping in mind and working towards making it sustainable, you will be on the right track and working from two directions to achieve almost identical goals.  You basically cannot get one without automatically getting the other, which is a good thing.  There are sort of two levels of sustainability as it relates to building.  There is the materials and practices sustainability, which includes the manufacturing, transportation, and installation of the raw materials and the building as a whole.  There is also the level of sustainability of the the structure as an end product, meaning how sustainable the structure is on it’s own.

When you are looking for places that supply green building materials, you need not look further than you might anticipate.  There are some mainstream specialty companies, such as paint companies, that will offer green alternatives.  But there are also more and more stores popping up that are green building specialty stores that carry nothing but the ‘good stuff.’  At these stores, you can either purchase off the shelf, or order most of your building supplies, especially those that are needed for the interior of your structures.  These include carpet, paint, varnishes, flooring options, cabinet options, environmentally friendly cleaning supplies, and even energy systems including heating and cooling as well as water systems.  These places are great resources to not only purchase materials, but to ask for advise on your building project, product comparison etc.

Once you have all of your lists made for your building materials, I recommend you try to see which of those can be possibly purchased through recycled sources.  I have written several blog posts on recycled materials, and reference it quite often because there are so many ways that it can help the environment and your pocket book.  Each time a material needs to be made, whether it is environmentally friendly or not, you still are paying for the cost to produce the goods.  Well, there might very well be those products already in existence looking for another home!

If you do not already know the news, building green is not more expensive than conventional building.  If by chance it ends up to be, it is on average less than 1% more!  After the actual building costs are out of the way, what is the maintaining cost difference?  More than you might think!  Green buildings on average are between 40-60% less expensive to upkeep with energy costs.  That cost is only going to make more and more of a difference as the cost of the conventional energy methods becomes more expensive.  Also, it is important to realize that the cost of green energy is not going to proportionately get more expensive with conventional methods.  This is due to the fact that the cost of equipment to collect is the initial cost (and often times the largest) and the energy sources are renewable.

If you are thinking about creating a structure with straw bale construction or want to know more about it, here are some things to consider.  One of the large considerations you will want to figure out early on is the specific type of construction.   You can either do a post and beam construction with the walls filled in with the straw bales, or you can use the straw bales as the weight bearing part of the structure with the roof resting on the bale walls.

When looking at cost structures, there are elements that can vary widely.  If you are considering this type of structure, then you already know that these types of buildings cost considerably much less than a size equivalent conventional structure.  But beyond that, cost of the bales, for example, varies depending on what season you choose to purchase them in.  Transportation distance will also play a key role in the cost per bale.  Texas is a great place to get straw bales from.  200 Million tons of straw are burned every year because, almost all of which is perfectly useable for construction purposes.  As for the exterior applications, you can either do-it-yourself, which may take longer but will almost always result in lower cost, or you can hire a contractor.  The material you choose for the outside will cost different amounts depending on what you choose.  For example site soil will cost much less than stucco.   Straw bale buildings have been built for as low as $10 per square foot and the higher end homes for about $100 per square foot.

Without too much reliance on a central cooling system or an air conditioning unit, there are so many ways you can keep cool in hot temperatures.  There is, of course, a multitude of manual ways such as draping a wet sheet over the window, or putting frozen water bottles in front of a fan.  But there are design features that you can add that will work as a natural convection.  The basis for one of these is ‘hot air rises.’  But building vents on your south (hottest) and north (coolest) side of the house (North America) you can create this flow of air.  Air molecules expand when hot; therefore, a larger vent will be needed on the South side to get the greatest efficiency of this system.  In turn, a smaller vent will be necessary on the coolest (usually North) side of the structure.

Buying your building materials locally can be a very rewarding and cost effective experience.  It seems to me that the most common place we hear about supporting locally is in the grocery store.  It seems that more and more farmers are getting their local goods into our stores.  I think it is so great!  It cuts down on the transportation costs for the farms, and can help the local economies.  Not only that, but smaller farms can offer higher quality products at a competitive price.

As with food, building materials can be purchase locally.  It is my suggestion that you try to purchase as many of your building materials from local sources as possible.  In Minnesota for example, there are great forests with wonderfully developed white and red pines.  These are great trees for log homes.  If you are looking into building with logs, consider what your local woods can offer.  Instead of shipping out cedar trees from Washington.  You will be paying less for a relatively comparable product.

Wood mills are a great place to look into for local products.  At these places you can often find wood that is not 100% top for their retail standards, but can function perfectly and beautifully.  Another idea is to contact an individual if you see a building on their property that is simply ‘heading south.’  Often times I see great barns and farm buildings in this condition.  Here you can find a variety of materials that may need a little buffing up.  These materials can include large support beams for structural systems, trim wood, wood flooring, doors, and windows.

You will find that you local community has a lot to offer the building trade.  A suggestion to find some of these, if you are unsuccessful in other ways, might be to put an ad in the local newspaper for the desired materials.  Creating a structure with local materials also simply creates a beautiful structure that can blend in well with the area, yet stand out with impeccable design and creativity.

While this is a very broad topic, I do want to talk about a couple things related to sustainable design as a whole.  Sustainable designed structures are generally very eco-friendly, and person friendly.  Sustainable can refer to as the way the materials are built or a highly sustainable structure, not very reliant on outside maintaining sources, or both.  I want to address the idea of size.  Does a house that is sustainable have to be small?  No.  However, think about size when you build.

The size of your home is directly related to the amount of money you will pay to upkeep it, sustainable or not.  Try this method, get the house design to the size you want it, and take out X amount of square footage throughout the whole floor plan, or X amount from each room.  My Grandma has a strategy that she used when packing: when everything is ready to go into the suitcase, only put in half.  It is an interesting habit, and can similarly be used with building.  I’m not saying cut your square footage in half, it is just something to consider for last minute savings on construction, as well as long-term savings on maintaining costs.

If you are not too excited about this method of making spaces a little smaller, consider this idea: when you have a final building plan, take the time to go through each room and analyze the space.  There are many tips you can use as a checklist in order to maximize the space you will utilize.  For example, if you do not spend very much time in your bedroom, then maybe you should take space from your bedrooms and give it to the community spaces.  Consider giving a portion to the community spaces.  Think about the closet spaces, if any.  Would dressers be doable alternative?  That will save on resources without a doubt.  Consider building bench seating along sections of the dining and living room walls (even in the bedrooms!) that can cross as storage.

If you get creative with the spaces you want, then you will find that you can not only save on building and maintenance costs, but you will enjoy the uniqueness of the spaces you do create to fit your specific needs.  These are just a few ideas to help think about the space you have.  If you think in terms of keeping the spaces small enough to save, but not too small so you feel scrunched, you can really come out head.  The key is to maximize your space efficiency while avoiding unnecessary amounts of space.  This will greatly help you keep your home in the sustainable design direction.