It’s easier to go green in today’s eco-friendly housing scene
Alternative energy sources from solar to windmills have been around for decades but always seemed too expensive on a large scale and a little flaky to catch on in a big way, something reserved for the granola and yoga crowd.
Yet just as granola bars now are regular fare on supermarket shelves and yoga studios dot cities and towns nationwide, once quirky power-saving innovations — geothermal heating and cooling, low-E windows, insulated concrete forms — are moving naturally toward the mainstream.
Green efficiencies power, light up, and insulate office buildings and warehouses worldwide. Eco-friendly designs are lowering long-term costs and improving air and water quality levels in homes, condos and apartments across the country. Organizations such as the U.S. Green Building Council and agencies such as the Department of Energy grade buildings and residences based on their environmental sophistication. The ratings serve as incentives for developers and architects interested in green construction.
One such measurement of power saving that’s emerged in recent years is net zero energy, which determines if savings on insulation and natural resources counteract the expenses for power from the electrical grid or elsewhere.
Buildings.com noted in the spring that “facilities are saving energy, water and money with ultra-efficient strategies.” The website cited a report by the New Buildings Institute that “332 buildings verified as or on their way to achieving net zero energy certification represent a 74 percent increase since the last count in late 2015.”
By the end of 2016, NBI had verified 53 projects achieving net zero energy consumption for at least one full year, up from 33 projects in 2014. One of those buildings is the Santa Fe Springs office of the California State Lottery. The cost of the retrofit process totaled $5.7 million, or $700,000 more than it would have cost to just meet code, the institute says.
Meanwhile, more than 60 percent of the net zero energy buildings verified last year had also earned Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. A USGBC innovation, LEED is one of the more established power-saving gauges, self-described as “the most widely used green building rating system in the world.” The design barometer certifies more than 2.2 million square feet of structures daily and more than 90,000 projects total in 165 countries.
One example of LEED’s monitoring efforts was to grant a “platinum” rating in May to the Live Oak House in St. Augustine, Florida.
According to the environmental design judge, the 2,396-squarefoot house adhered to “the local vernacular and Charleston’s Single Houses constructed one room wide and several rooms long to allow the breezes to flow through unencumbered, effectively combating both heat and humidity.” The property boasts “a central hallway extending in the north-south direction with an arm off of either end and a courtyard around a central oak tree,” it says.
Other features include local materials, large porches, a steeply sloped roof and the home’s setting on a 48-foot-wide site featuring a 75-year-old live oak tree. Another “striking architectural feature” are the windows. “Peering out of the kitchen-dining room window, where one’s cheeks quickly cool from the breezy Atlantic wind, an adult visitor can nearly stand head to toe in the huge windows and absorb the majestic landscape,” the LEED report says.
Considered one of the “greenest” homes in northeast Florida, the house earned national and state ecological certifications, including:
• Passive solar lighting
• Low VOC (volatile organic compound) paints, adhesives and sealants
• Energy Recovery Ventilator-incorporated heating/cooling system
• Hot water insulation and air filters exceed building code standards
• Bathrooms and garage touting an enhanced local exhaust fan that operates on a timer; and all bathrooms conserving water with WaterSense toilets, faucets and showers.
• Un-irrigated, drought-tolerant grass on a 100 percent permeable lot to maximize storm-water absorption and reduce runoff into the adjacent Salt Run fishing and paddling hot spot.
The house scored an Energy Star HERS (home energy rating system) index of 50, in which the lower the score below 100, the better.
Finally, the roots of the live oak tree “continue to grow below the elevated home, which add to the overall beauty,” the environmental design system says.