Jeff Medanich's Green Story

The summer I turned sixteen years old, two major events occurred that would impact my life. I got my drivers license and my first job as a carpenter’s helper. The first made me mobile and the second provided me with a means to afford this mobility. I had the good fortune to be apprenticed to two “old school” craftsmen who were happy to share their knowledge and skills with a green kid. I realized right off that I had found something I really liked to do, was somewhat proficient at and that paid better than pumping gas or waiting tables which is what my buddies were doing.
Thirty-five years and many variations of homebuilding, remodeling and carpentry jobs later, I’m still in the building business and consider myself extremely lucky to have found a profession I thoroughly enjoy and that has always provided me with a means to meet the needs of myself and my family.

I first learned about energy efficiency in the late seventies. I was working as an apprentice carpenter and I knew a guy who was starting a business using a new insulation material, polyurethane foam. We were doing retrofits on existing homes and my job was to drill a two inch hole every sixteen inches around the perimeter of the house. He would then fill the stud cavities with foam and I would plug the hole. This was after the oil embargo of the mid seventies when everyone suddenly became energy conscious. After awhile, oil and gas prices dropped and miraculously there was seemingly no more energy problem. I knew in the back of my mind that there was something to this tight construction idea and began employing what are now called “Green Building” techniques on all my projects whenever I could.

Almost twenty years later, again I had the good fortune to go to work for one of the pioneer production green builders in the country. The founders of McStain Neighborhoods had been employing sustainable building and development techniques before they were referred to as green building but always had the environment in mind. This is where I really got the opportunity to research and develop cutting edge building technologies related to highly sustainable, high performance home construction.. I have also realized that much of what those “old school” guys that I worked with all those years ago taught me about framing, flashing and details to make buildings last longer is now a part of what we refer to as Building Science.

Green building has become a passion for me and I am of the opinion that there is simply no other way to build. In order to construct environmentally responsible, healthy, long lasting structures, you must take a holistic, systems approach to design and building.
I live in a house that is almost one hundred years old and it is still a safe, comfortable place to live and promises to be for many years to come. We have the ability to create buildings that people will be saying that about several hundred years from now. That’s exciting to think about and we owe it to our grandkids.

--Jeff Medanich is Vice President of Harvard Communities in Denver, Colo

Jim Sargent's Green Story

I got off on the right start in the ‘70’s building energy efficient homes when the US went through the oil embargo. But in the early ‘80s I went to the dark side for a bit, building the pretty parts and ignoring the fact that they were gas guzzlers. It was in 1985 when my first son went off to college that it really hit me: I need to build ALL my homes to support the kind of world I want for my children and grandchildren.

It's all in the details
That year we decided the only way to really understand home energy performance was to monitor their energy consumption. We tracked the monthly utility bills for every home we built from 1985 to 2000. Along the way, I learned as much as I could from as many sources as I could about energy and resource efficiency, all this long before the terms healthy or green building popped up. And I learned that the buzz words don’t mean that much, especially if they are not backed up by attention to detail. I can build a home of sticks, or SIPs, or ICFs and all three homes will perform about the same, so long as we are all paying attention to details during construction. Picking the strategies, systems, and technologies is the easy part; putting them all together on site in the right way is the hard part.

To me, green building is about “passing it on.”
I have spent a lot of time teaching both builders and high school students how to build well, sharing with anyone who will listen what I have learned about energy and resource efficiency over the years. I worked hard on the adoption of the International Residential Code (IRC) in Texas, when most said it could not be done. It won’t work if just some of us change the way we build; it is going to take all of us working together on this one.

--Jim Sargent is a green custom builder in Dallas, Texas
www.zeroenergyhomedallas.com
www.andersonsargent.com

Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Cut Your Utility Bill

Green building has become a poster child for everything from solar panels to bamboo flooring. While all aspects are of green building are important, the first step towards a green home is to get the core systems working properly. With energy costs skyrocketing, it's a great place to start.

By Matt Golden

At Sustainable Spaces, when we work with homeowners to develop a roadmap for retrofitting their houses, we emphasize getting the basics, or the infrastructure, done right. It might not be sexy, but it is the core of the house. After looking at the basics, we focus on major systems, such as heating systems, water heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning. Once the house is operating efficiently, with good air quality and comfort, then we look at properly sized renewable energy systems such as solar and wind. These systems will be much smaller (and more affordable) because the house now uses much less energy.

But what can a homeowner do right now that will have an impact on their energy load, without involving a major home remodel? Here's my top five list of improvements anyone can make to get on the path of energy efficiency, at a reasonable cost.

1) Get a home energy audit - Start by evaluating your entire house as a system. It’s not about products; it’s about results. A building science-based audit will help you create a plan to fix your home based on what will have the maximum results. And PG&E will even help underwrite this audit! See EnergyStar.gov for more info

2) Reduce air leakage - Heated or air-conditioned air leaks out through gaps, cracks and holes in your home’s walls and ceilings and means your energy dollars are floating away. Sealing these penetrations is the most cost effective way to save energy. Most leaks are between your house and your attic. Read a Fine Homebuilding article on the topic here.

3) Seal your ducts - In California, the average duct systems (the tubes that move heat from your furnace to your house), has 30% leakage. When you figure that 40% to 50% of your home’s energy goes through this system, you can see that it has a huge impact on your bill. This system is also responsible for your home’s comfort and indoor air quality. Leaky ducts bring in dirty air from all the worse places to replace the air that escapes. Poor design and leaks mean that there is imbalanced distribution that results in cold and hot rooms, and general discomfort. When sealing duct work, use mastic not duct tape.

4) Add insulation - Adding insulation should happen after you air seal (or air sealing becomes very hard to do later). Generally adding insulation to the attic is the easiest and has the fastest return. You should have 10 inches of insulation or R-30+. We recommend using blow-in cellulose (recycled newspapers). If you want to do it yourself and use batts, try to get blue jean batts – but remember that you must install the insulation very carefully, as most insulation only performs at 50% of its rated value due to air gaps, compressions, and other installation defects. When adding a layer of batts to an attic, lay it perpendicular to the first layer to help reduce air gaps.

5) Replace light bulbs / appliances / plug-loads - Compact Florescent Bulbs (CFLs) use 25% the energy for the same amount of light. Replacing a 15 year old refrigerator with an energy star model can cut your bill by 60%. That's a pretty substantial amount in two steps. Plug loads can be negated with a power strip plugged into a switchable wall outlet.

Not everyone can make their home 100% green and zero energy in the first-pass, but by creating a comprehensive plan homeowners can begin the path towards sustainability and see real results on almost any budget.

And remember, a green house does not necessarily mean it is full of fancy new technology. There’s usually 30% to 40% waste just in these fundamental issues that don’t need fancy solutions to resolve them!

--Matt Golden is president of Sustainable Spaces, a home energy performance company in San Francisco, Calif

Michael Chandler's Green Story

I come from a long line of engineers and people who work with their hands.
Collectively, my Grandfathers and Great Grandfathers invented a way to explode dynamite under water, worked on the Panama Canal, figured out how to mount naval artillery on flat beds leading a cadre of iron workers into battle during WWI, engineered earthquake resistant buildings after the San Francisco earthquake founded MIT, and climbed up the towers and out the cables of suspension bridges to test them for metal fatigue. My father sailed to the Galapagos Islands at 13, and got into computers when they ran on tape drives and took up entire rooms. He was constantly inventing stuff in the basement that became part of our lives: intercoms, burglar alarms, and a heating system for our house that still amazes me.

I still own and use his tools and tools from both grandfathers.

I didn’t have much choice in my direction: the family videos show my Dad and me (two years old) walking on the second floor joists while our house was being built. We did two additions to the house while I was growing up, designed by a family friend. When I was 16, I spent an afternoon with R. Buckminster Fuller. He was 87 at the time, I sought him out then because I was interested in affordable homes, elegant design, and excited about the future.

I still have the drawing (at right) he used to illustrate our conversation dated June 9th 1972.

In college I interned with Moore-Weinrich Architects in Rumford, Maine -- riding my bike to work each day. They were working on an architectural contest (which they won); the founder, Steven Moore, is now a green architect teaching at UT Austin. From there I went on to intern at Design Works in Carrboro NC and to co-found Space Builders which as now celebrating its thirtieth year as an employee owned business. As part of that start-up process I took a workshop with the New School for Democratic Management which was one of those little nudges that pushed me in just the right direction at just the right time.

Before that nudge, I saw the business end of building and designing as a necessary evil; afterwards, I saw business as an important part of the craft. I was enjoying the great game of business long before Jack Stack wrote the book.

I left Space Builders when I realized that consensus decision-making made me crazy. Traveling around North America in a ‘65 Dodge van, working in California and Maine helped me to build my carpentry skills and people skills. Somewhere in there I learned about the work with Thermal Photography and the air tight drywall approach that Joe Lstiburek was doing in the Canadian R-2000 program. The idea that Building Science could be a legitimate field of study made me happy.

We look back on those days now with bemusement and regret. The double envelope houses, underground air pipes for cooling, trombe walls, and solar salt boxes that were way too tight and just plain ugly.

My business thrived and faltered, but my marriage failed. I focused on the business and joined an NAHB builder 20 club. Along the way I instituted profit sharing and an employee centered way of doing business and in 2002 and 2003 our company was named one of the top 50 builders to work for in America. We went on to win the 2005 NAHB seniors housing council Best Aging in Place Design for New Custom Homes and to pick up second place at the National Green Building Awards in 2006 and 2007 for Best Green Custom Home and to win a Pacesetter Award at the 2006 NAHB Custom Builder Symposium for "sustainable business management". Somewhere in there I fell in love with a client, got married, and she is now my designer and business partner (she drew all the award winning houses). Nowadays I get to spend a lot of time writing and teaching about green building in addition to running the business with a really great crew.

In the next five years we're splitting the design and building business and giving the building business to our employees using an incentivized stock-option plan. They'll get a debt-free company, but will pay a portion of their profits over the first five years during which time I'll be their employee and mentor. The great game of business is pretty fun, if you play it right.

So how did I get into home building?
I received a degree from Dartmouth in sculpture only because they didn't have an architecture degree. Once I graduated it seemed more likely that I would draw a regular paycheck as a builder than as a sculptor.

How did I get into Green Building?
I was always drawn to architects that were pushing the envelope with passive solar design and innovative engineering. It just seemed a whole lot more fun than just throwing up boxes, and I had done some of that working in government subsidized housing for the elderly. I also come with a strong preference for egalitarian workplaces and the people who were building solar were more ideologically aligned with me.

I’m a bit of mad scientist; green building best-practices and their refinement is interesting and fun for me.

What does Green Building mean to me?
To me it's all about refining the definition of what is best practice in building homes for people to optimize comfort and health and minimize the impact on the environment. I like to also optimize value because that's a fun part of the game. It's also easier to make a profit if you can provide great value.

And I like the homes to be beautiful because life is to short to waste time building ugly homes.

--Michael Chandler owns Chandler Design/Build near Chapel Hill, North Carolina

We are Everywhere!

Except the northwest and mid west. The map shows who is where. I made the map unlisted, so other folks shouldn't stumble accross it, and it should be editable by any of us, so if you want to fill in stuff to your bubble or move your push pin to a different location (like your home or office, for example) go for it.



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Eric Doub's Green Story

I grew up with a father who studied Taoist texts in the original Chinese while waiting in foxholes in the Army in Germany in the 1950s. He protested the H-bomb in that same decade. As a Girl Scout leader in the 1970s in Boulder, Colorado, my mother retrieved a road kill deer and had her charges skin the animal, tan the hide by traditional methods, and make moccasins and drums. She also studied outdoor survival skills and spent 10 days in the Idaho back country with only a pocket knife. When it came to suburban survival, however, she drove the car my father claimed to have no ownership of (“It's Nancy's car!”). My father rode his bike, took buses and trains and walked, and never used the word car that I can recall: He would always say “Pollution-Waste Machine” or “Stinking Metal Box.” Car drivers were “Oil Spill Lovers” or "Emphysema Lovers."

With parents like that...
I could have either run the other direction, or followed in their worldview footsteps. I did the latter. In Junior High, I would get angry at seeing lawn sprinklers over spraying onto the sidewalks and streets and wasting water. I made up a flyer and put one on every car parked at the local recreation center: “Did you have to drive here to get exercise?” As a teenager I believed I would never own a car. Lo and behold, it started with a motorcycle...and our family now has the average American number of “Pollution-Waste Machines.”

In my college application essay in 1980, I started off with approximately this:

“It's something to consider. The Swedes are not freezing in the dark, and their
per capita energy consumption is about half of Americans’.” The rest of the
essay went about as follows: “…studying nuclear energy for a school paper “has
been an initiation into energy research, and a synthesis of goals – of self
preservation and academics – that may be the most important thing that’s
happened to me yet.
Current events make it desperately clear: We’re in
transition to a post-petroleum civilization. War in the Middle East, the arms
race, revolution in Third World countries all point to a reorganization of the
planet’s resources. And American lifestyles and consumption are at the center of
the crisis. When good, obedient, middle-class Americans – those who guard the
system – cannot buy gas or pay the heating bill or get enough to eat, our
society will turn upside down. Historian Howard Zinn calls this the Revolt of
the Guards. When this happens I want to be a citizen who knows, who has
researched, who has hope: for a sane, decentralized, democratic energy system
where the power is in the hands of the people and in biomass, efficiency, hydro,
wind, solar, and co-generation.”

When I did get into Stanford, I took all the energy-related courses I could: “Small Scale Energy Systems.” “Soft Energy Paths and Non-Nuclear Futures…” My undergrad degree? I called it “Sustainable U.S. Resource and Security Policies.”

Just another run of the mill bachelor’s degree.

--Eric Doub is president of EcoFutures Building Inc., Boulder, Colorado's leading Zero Energy Home builder.

Peter Yost's Green Story

They say it's better to be lucky than smart. I got into home building out of dumb luck, but it turned out to be the smartest thing I ever did. Teaching high school in my early 20’s, I needed a summer job. My two oldest brothers had a busy construction business, so I was a hired hand— staining clapboards, hauling drywall, getting coffee. I had no idea that I would actually like the work or make a career out of it. Something about working with both my head and my hands, and particularly working with wood, struck a chord.

Green building just came naturally. I’m from a family of thirteen, raised on a minister’s salary. My Mother grew up a fisherman’s daughter in a house several feet below sea level with a rooftop rainwater catchment system. She knew more about resource efficiency than any Nobel Laureate in economics. And she taught the thirteen of us all about it.

I distinctly remember the day I started to think differently as a builder. They closed the local dump in one of the towns where we built in Seacoast New Hampshire with no warning. Just one day we were dumping demolition debris close by and for free, and the next we were off to a
regional landfill 35 miles away paying $65 a ton. The first time I drove into that landfill I drove a half a mile from the tipping scale DOWN in elevation to the "active cell" where I could dump my load.

But that wasn’t the actual day that I began thinking differently as a builder, because for the next few months we worked in towns that still had a local dump. The next time I went to that landfill with a load of job waste, I drove a quarter mile more past that first “cell” and drove UP what seemed like 50 feet to the next "active cell." That was the actual day I began thinking seriously about a different way of building, a way that several years later would come to be called green building.

To me, green building is all about process; it's a mix of thinking and building that continually evolves better ways to design and build. I have come to think of green building as the way that quality, resource-efficiency, and durability fit together in a home with the smallest environmental footprint possible.

But stay tuned—I think we still have a lot to learn.

--Peter Yost is Director of Residential Services at BuildingGreen and technical director of GreenBuildingAdvisor.com