Inexpensive Strategiesfor Green BuildingYes, recycled lumber and plantation-grown lumber cost more,but designing smaller houses, orienting them for solar gain andminimizing job-site waste don't

BY ALEX WILSON

any designers and builders thinkof green building as just anotheradd-on option for potential home

buyers to consider: "So do you want the mas-ter-bath bump-out with spa ($4,800), thethree-car garage ($10,500) and our exclusive'green'package (just $3,500)?"

Owners then mix and match these options,trading off conflicting priorities, to staywithin their budget. "We'll go with the mas-ter-bath option, but stick with the two-cargarage; and how much of that green packagecan you provide for $2,500?"

While quite common today, this a la carteapproach largely misses the point of greenbuilding. Limiting green building to a col-lection of add-ons almost guarantees thatthe finished product will fail to be as green aspossible, no matter what the budget.

I suggest a different approach. Instead ofbeginning with a collection of high-profile(and often expensive) green features to addto a house, let's integrate from the start tenbasic strategies that dramatically increasesustainability but add little or no cost. Someeven reduce costs. Even strategies that do in-

crease purchase price slightly may reduce thetotal cost of ownership (due to the lowerutility bills or reduced maintenance costs)while providing a greener product (sidebarfacing page).

Green homes are often fairly expensive, butthey don't need to be. You can usually imple-ment the following strategies with little orno net increase in the house's overall price.You can certainly go a lot farther, installingsolar panels on the roof, recycled-glass tilesin the bathrooms and certified-wood cabi-nets in the kitchen—and I hope you will

Wasteful habits add costs to thebudget and to the environment.An oversize, poorly insulated house wastesboth money and natural resources. When builtwith old-growth Wood and off-gassingmaterials, then surrourfded by a large,chemically maintained lawn on an isolated,clear-cut lot, its environmental costs increaseexponentially.

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Simple steps protect the budgetand the environment. Built to reducewaste, near other development to preventsprawl and with native plants to protect thehabitat, this house is configured for passive-solar gain and natural cooling. A variety ofmeasures from site plan to finish flooringminimizes environmental impact withoutincreasing overall cost.

What exactly is green building?The phrase "green building" has been thrown around a lot in the past fewyears. As used here, it means designing and building a home in a way that re-duces the environmental impacts of both building and operating it. A greenhome is one that:

• Is no bigger than it needs to be.• Uses materials efficiently.• Does not harm—and may even help—the immediate environment.• Does not waste much energy or water.• Will last a long time and require only low-impact maintenance.• Will be healthy to live in.

There are many ways to design and build a green home; don't expect one listof measures to fit every situation. The details of any green design dependon the needs and priorities of the homeowner, the building site, the localclimate, regional resource issues and, of course, the budget.–A. W.

consider these options—but you don't haveto spend any more to build a green home.

1. Make houses no largerthan necessarySince 1950, the average U. S. house size hasmore than doubled while the average familysize has dropped 25%. Put another way, theaverage house in 1950 provided 290 sq. ft.per family member; the average house todayprovides more than 800 sq. ft., a 2.8-fold in-crease. Scaling back not only reduces the en-vironmental impacts of building and operat-ing that house, but it also saves money.

Depending on how much we reduce over-all house size, we may save money even whilespending more per square foot on better-quality finishes, extra amenities and perhapseven some of those more-expensive greenfeatures. Building smaller isn't easy, though.It takes a good designer to create a smallhouse that functions well and doesn't feelcramped. Sarah Susanka's book, The Not SoBig House (The Taunton Press, 1998), pro-vides a superb, beautifully illustrated over-view of creating smaller houses that work.

2. Use integrated energy designIntegrated energy design pays for better en-ergy performance by downsizing heating andcooling equipment. This low-cost strategy iscrucial to designing a green home (drawingpp. 92-93). Say you spend an extra $5,000increasing insulation levels to R-24 in thewalls and R-50 in the roof, upgrading tohigh-efficiency windows with multiple low-Ecoatings and configuring the house to bene-fit from passive-solar heating and naturalcooling. These changes allow you to heat theentire house with a single high-efficiency,vented gas space heater ($1,500) and two ra-diant-electric panels ($500), and to maintaincomfort in summer with a single room airconditioner ($500) and two paddle fans($500). The building-envelope design andthis heating and cooling equipment allowyou to eliminate the central heat and airunits, ducting and controls ($8,000). The to-tal direct costs of these two approaches bal-ance out, and you get a far greener home thatcosts much less to operate.

Although the principles of integrated ener-gy design are fairly straightforward, imple-menting them effectively takes a lot of skilland experience. The key is working with agood energy designer who can use comput-er-design tools to model building perfor-mance. Several builders I know have beenusing Energy-10 design software, a model-ing tool developed by the National Renew-able Energy Laboratory and distributed by

the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council(www.sbicouncil.org; 202-628-7400). Ener-gy-10 allows them to simulate how variousalternatives (different insulation levels, glaz-ings, window configurations, etc.) will affectthe building's energy performance. As withall prediction software, the output is only asgood as the input; the designer must under-stand building science to evaluate the soft-ware's predictions. Paying for such expertiseat the design stage saves resources and mon-ey at all later stages.

3. Use materials more efficientlyDesigning and building a house to standarddimensions—wall lengths in multiples of2 ft. or 4 ft., ceilings at 8 ft.—saves moneyboth by reducing cut-off waste and by reduc-

First cost vs.life-cycle costBuilding a green home without spend-ing more is certainly possible, butsometimes it makes sense to spendmore up front for savings down theroad. For example, energy improve-ments to the building envelope (insula-tion, glazings, passive-solar design) canoften be paid for through reduced costof mechanical equipment. But even ifthe savings don't pay for the entireextra up-front costs, it still probablymakes sense to carry out those mea-sures; life-cycle costs will be a lotlower. The same argument holds truefor a more expensive siding materialthat will last 50 years instead of 20years, or for installing longer over-hangs that protect siding from rainand splash back.

Life-cycle cost analysis looks at thetotal costs of a product or system overits life: initial purchase, energy use,maintenance and replacement. Theidea of payback for an investment—the time it takes to repay the extra up-front cost—is a common way toexpress this. Return on investment isanother. Comprehensive life-cycle costanalysis will factor in the discountrate, an assumption for how quicklymoney in the bank will increase invalue if you saved your money insteadof investing it in the product.—A. W.

ing landfill disposal costs. Optimum-valueengineering, or advanced framing, allows youto use less framing lumber without sacrific-ing structural integrity (drawing facing page).

Joseph Lstiburek, P. E., of Building ScienceCorporation in Westborough, Massachusetts,consults for some of the largest productionhomebuilders in the country. Lstiburek hasseen dramatic savings result from advancedframing. The lumber package costs about thesame with advanced framing (even thoughless lumber is used, more expensive 2x6s aresubstituted for 2x4s), but labor costs less—after a learning curve. "The real financialbenefit of advanced framing," he claims, "isreduced callbacks from drywall cracking."

Town and Country Homes in Chicago,which builds about 1,000 homes per year, isnow saving $75,000 to $100,000 a year justthrough reduced drywall callbacks. Withtwo-stud corners and drywall clips support-ing drywall, corners are far less prone tocracking. Prior to switching to advancedframing, the company had a 75% to 85%callback rate for drywall cracking; that hasnow dropped to less than 20%.

4. Use structural materials asfinish materialsHouses can be thought of as being built inlayers: a structural layer (wood-frame wallsand plywood subfloors, for example) sup-ports an interior finish layer (drywall, hard-wood flooring) and an exterior finish layer(siding and shingles). Combining structureand finish in one material can save both re-sources and money. For example, texturedand pigmented concrete floors are attractiveenough to serve as the finished floor and addthermal mass. Structural posts, beams,rafters and collar ties can be left exposed.Timber-framing carries this strategy to greatlengths (photo p. 96) but is usually not alow-cost building approach. Applied lesscomprehensively, though—for instance, us-ing timber-frame ceiling joists with exposedtongue-and-groove flooring above—thisstrategy can save money while saving mate-rials. Autoclaved cellular concrete blocks areanother example. This low-cost material usesa fiber-reinforced stucco over blocks laidwith thinset mortar. The stucco can serve asthe wall finish on both interior and exterior.

5. Build a patio instead of a deckRaised decks are either environmentallydamaging or expensive—or both. Pressure-treated wood (usually chromated copper ar-senate treatment, or CCA) carries significantenvironmental risk during disposal, whilethe naturally rot-resistant woods used for

ADVANCED FRAMING SAVES MATERIALSKeeping wall lengths to increments of 2 ft. avoids small stud bays that complicate framing, while 2x6 studs 24 in.o. c. with two-stud corners minimize wasted materials and maximize insulation. Aligning rafters and studs for in-lineframing allows the use of a single top plate.

decks, including redwood and the tropicalipé, are not readily available from indepen-dently certified forests. (The Forest Stew-ardship Council—www.fscus.org; 877-372-5646—lists guidelines that should be con-sidered standard for well-managed forests.)The environmentally attractive decking ma-terial—recycled plastic lumber or recycledwood-plastic composite lumber—has a high-er first cost than pressure-treated lumber, butcosts less to maintain and has a long life.

Fortunately, there's another green alterna-tive: Stone patios last longer and do not re-lease chemicals into the environment. Stonecan usually be found locally, and the patiowill need less maintenance and probably costless to build (photo p. 97).

6. Use salvaged materialsUsing salvaged building materials eliminatesthe environmental impacts associated withextracting raw materials and processing

them into building products. Materials sal-vaged from buildings being torn down orrenovated are sometimes (but certainly notalways) less expensive than new materials.Note that low-cost salvaged materials canrequire labor to prepare—scraping mortaroff old brick, removing nails, etc., so evenbuying salvaged materials inexpensively willnot always reduce building costs. In fact, vin-tage salvaged and remilled lumber oftencosts significantly more than new lumber;but the quality, durability and often the re-sale value of the home are usually higher.With some species—cypress, longleaf yellowpine and redwood, for example—the bestwood available today is often from salvagedsources because we have depleted the old-growth trees that can produce such lumber.

Salvage yards often carry lower-cost sal-vaged materials. These materials may in-clude wood that hasn't been remilled, brick,stone countertops, slate shingles, patio flag-

stone, hardwood flooring, claw-foot bath-tubs and period millwork (doors, mantels,wainscoting, etc.). Even salvaged paint isavailable in some areas—filtered andremixed leftover acrylic paint works fine asprimer. Most of these salvaged materials willcost less than comparable new products;sometimes, the savings are significant.

A few cautions: Avoid the temptation toinstall salvaged toilets or shower and sinkhardware that uses far more water than newproducts. Similarly, salvaged windows lackenergy efficiency. Finally, use care in buyingsalvaged wood, especially millwork, becauseof potential contamination with lead paint orpesticide residue. Lead-paint test kits arewidely available and easy to use.

7. Reduce job-site wasteConstruction-waste disposal never used tobe a significant budget item in home con-struction, but it often is today. Reducing the

Double duty. Recycled timbers and concrete floors conserve resources by serving asboth structural and finish materials. The concrete floor also adds thermal mass.

amount of waste being hauled to the landfillcan save hundreds of dollars per home.Waste-reduction strategies include storingand reusing lumber cutoffs, chipping up dry-wall scraps as a soil amendment and recy-cling cardboard, plastic packaging, steelscrap, asphalt shingles and nonreusablewood. A local municipal solid-waste officeshould be able to provide a list of recyclingfacilities. It takes time to separate, store andhaul recyclable materials; but for a well-organized job site, the costs of dealing re-sponsibly with waste should be less than thecosts of simply landfilling it.

8. Cluster buildings or build nearexisting infrastructureIn a larger development or subdivision, clus-tering buildings reduces infrastructure costs:water and sewer lines, natural-gas lines, elec-tricity, storm-water drainage systems andpavement. Clustering can also reduce per-mitting costs, for instance if measures toprotect open space increase support for the

project. Clustering offers at least two envi-ronmental benefits: It consumes less materi-al and protects open space, farmland andwildlife corridors.

Creating tightly knit communities can alsoresult in environmental benefits down theroad—or rather not down the road—becauseresidents may find that they like spendingtime in the neighborhood instead of drivingsomewhere else. Clustering houses whilepermanently protecting open space is one ofour most important green opportunities.

When building individual houses, we canrealize the same sorts of environmental andcost benefits by building where infrastruc-ture already exists. In urban or suburban ar-eas, consider in-fill lots; in rural areas, con-sider already developed sites instead ofdeveloping undisturbed land.

9. Protect existing trees and usenative landscapingSaving trees on a building site takes time andeffort, but it repays handsomely. Planting a

reasonably sized tree costs hundreds of dol-lars, while large existing trees add significantvalue to a home—on the order of $5,000 to$10,000, according to a survey by the Na-tional Association of Home Builders.

While you're saving trees, get rid of turfgrass. Instead, consider native vegetation:Where you want grass, plant indigenousgrasses. In appropriate regions, seed for tall-grass prairie vegetation or maintain a nativewoodland. Even if these landscape treat-ments don't save money initially, they will al-most certainly reduce maintenance costs;outdoor water use often accounts for one-half of a homeowner's water bill. Meanwhile,native landscaping offers dramatic environ-mental benefits. For starters, native vegeta-tion provides food and forage for wildlife,thus helping to restore biodiversity. Mean-while, in many areas, chemical runoff fromlawns is the No. 1 cause of water pollution;and, according to the EPA, a two-cycle gaso-line lawn mower generates more carbon mon-oxide and other regulated air pollutants in onehour than driving a typical car 2,000 miles.

10. Allow storm-water infiltrationThe conventional practice of channelingrainfall into storm sewers and dumping it ina nearby body of water is both environmen-tally damaging and expensive. Channelingstorm water directly into surface waters con-tributes to downstream flooding, precludesnatural filtration and chemical breakdown ofpollutants, and prevents the recharging ofunderground aquifers. For a large subdivi-sion, building storm sewers can cost hun-dreds of thousands of dollars. In some areas,storm-sewer connections are even requiredfor individual houses. With planning, how-ever, we can usually allow rainwater to soakinto the ground right on site—what civil en-gineers call storm-water infiltration.

In the 1970s, developer Michael Corbettdesigned the 70-acre, 240-unit VillageHomes subdivision in Davis, California, sothat it could handle, without storm sewers,all the storm water likely to be generated ineven the heaviest rainstorms. As it rechargedaquifers and reduced downstream floodingrisks, this strategy saved about $800 perhouse—$200,000 total. Interestingly, the lo-cal building department did not trust thisnatural storm-water management systemand made Corbett post a $1 million bond topay for retrofitting storm sewers after hisscheme failed. Shortly after the project wascompleted, when a severe 100-year storm in-undated Davis, the Village Homes subdivi-sion handled not only all this rainfall, but al-so much of the runoff from adjacent

Photo not authorized for reproduction

subdivisions whose storm-sewer systemsfailed. The city returned Corbett's bond.

Specific strategies for storm-water infiltra-tion include the following:

• Minimize paving—keep driveways andaccess roads narrow, for example.

• Avoid contiguous impervious surfaces—where a paved sidewalk abuts the driveway,provide a crushed-stone connecting channelinto which storm water can drain.

• Use porous paving for the driveway andparking surfaces—special mixes of asphalt,open-web concrete pavers filled with gravelor planted with grass, or special recycled-plastic honeycomb paving systems that canbe filled with sand and planted with grass(the plastic grid prevents soil compression,thus protecting the grass).

• Collect and store rainwater from theroof—a rain barrel under the downspoutscosts almost nothing, while a more sophisti-cated system with a large cistern and water-purification system will cost significantlymore. Harvesting rainwater reduces con-sumption of municipal-water supplies andthus the homeowner's water bill.

Energy-efficient mortgages givehomeowners more for their moneyThese ten strategies are a good start towardlow-cost green building, No matter how wellbuilders control costs, though, the home-owner still has to pay for it; and most home-owners need to take out mortgages to do so.

Fortunately, many lenders now offer specialmortgages for energy-efficient houses. Anenergy-efficient mortgage (EEM) recog-nizes that the owners of such houses willspend less on energy, and so can afford high-er mortgage payments. Thus, owners at agiven income level can afford a more expen-sive house. They can get more of a house—anicer location, perhaps, or some of thosegreen features that do cost more—withoutraising their total monthly housing costs(mortgage payments plus energy bills). Insome markets, the mortgage-lending com-pany Fannie Mae is currently testing other,much broader "green mortgages."

Building a green home doesn't have to costa penny more than building a conventionalhome. What does cost more, though, is theinvestment of time required by the designerand builder to make a house green. It takestime and effort first to learn about and thento implement environmentally responsibledesign and construction practices. Don't ex-pect to build the ultimate green home rightaway. Ease into green building by integratinga few new strategies into each home, gradu-ally making it a key part of your design. Yourclients will be pleased with the homes youcreate, and you can feel good about helpingto make your children's and grandchildren'sworld a better place.

Alex Wilson edits Environmental Building News inBrattleboro, VT.

Let it rain. A fieldstone patio avoids the chemicals of treated wood decks andrequires little maintenance.

Photo this page: Steve Silk

Green-buildingresourcesBOOKSBuilder's Guide to Cold Climates: Detailsfor Design and Construction by JosephLstiburek; The Taunton Press, 2000.

Building Greener Neighborhoods: Trees asPart of the Plan, 2nd edition, by NationalAssociation of Home Builders; HomeBuilder Press, 1995.

Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings,7th edition, by Alex Wilson, JenniferThorne and John Morrill; American Councilfor an Energy Efficient Economy, 1999.

Green Building Materials: A Guide to Prod-uct Selection and Specification by RossSpiegel and Dru Meadows; John Wiley &Sons, 1999.

Green Development: Integrating Ecologyand Real Estate by Alex Wilson, et al; JohnWiley & Sons, 1998.

Residential Construction Waste Manage-ment: A Builder's Field Guide by Peter Yostand Eric Lund; NAHB Research Center,1996.

Sustainable Landscape Construction: AGuide to Green Building Outdoors byWilliam J. Thompson and Kim Sorvig; Is-land Press, 2000.

The Wild Lawn Handbook: Alternatives tothe Traditional Lawn by Stevie Daniels;Macmillan Publishing Company, 1995.

DIRECTORIESGreenspec, E Build Inc.; www.buildinggreen.com; (802) 257-7300The Harris Directory, B.J. Harris; www.harrisdirectory.com; (505) 983-2962Green Building Resource Guide by JohnHermannsson; The Taunton Press, 1997

PERIODICALSEnvironmental Building News, E Build Inc.;www.buildinggreen.com; (802) 257-7300Natural Home, Natural Home, LLC; www.naturalhomemagazine.com; (800) 340-5846Environmental Design and Construction,Business News Publishing;www.edcmag.com; (415) 863-2614