Green It Yourself

It's actually easy to be enviro-friendly. Here are some tips to get you started.

by Francesca Heintz

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Published: Feb 21, 2007

Green building has gotten a lot of buzz lately. It's touted as a first step toward healing our scarred planet, but actually going about building a sustainable home is not something most people have much experience with.

SETTING THE BAR: Having built the first LEED-certified house in Pennsylvania, Jackie O'Neill of Perkiomen lives in a home that produces as much energy as it consumes annually. Photo By: michael m. koehler (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

To start, you need to find designers, builders and contractors who have experience working with sustainable development. "It's important to use certification," says Liz Robinson, executive director of the Philadelphia-based Energy Coordinating Agency. "A lot of people try and use shortcuts."

One thing to look for when choosing a builder is a LEED accreditation. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a national rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council that evaluates the sustainability of a building through a third-party verification system. [Read about efforts to build Philly's first LEED-certified single-family home on p. 24.] Accredited professionals for LEED have demonstrated a thorough knowledge of green-building practices and are familiar with LEED requirements and processes; a list of building professionals in the area who've met these requirements is available at www.usgbc.org. This Web site also contains information about LEED for Homes, an initiative that promotes the design and construction of high-performance green homes.

Energy Star Homes is another standard developed by the Environmental Protection Agency that requires the home to be more energy-efficient than demanded by the state housing code. In Pennsylvania, the Energy Star Homes standard guarantees that the home operates 15 percent to 20 percent more efficiently than the national International Energy Conservation Code standard, saving the homeowner approximately $450 a year in energy bills. A list of builders who operate according to these standards is available at www.energystar.gov.

In response to the growing demand for green housing, Robinson says that both LEED for Homes and Energy Star Homes have generated a tremendous interest among homeowners, causing builders to take notice. "We're seeing builders more attuned to how to capture the market," she says. "They are looking for ways to distinguish themselves."

A third standard is Green Advantage — www.greenadvantage.org — which certifies builders. While Green Advantage also lists builders in the Philadelphia area, none as of yet have residential certification.

Experts also recommend hiring a green designer or consultant to oversee the process, ensuring that the important first steps are taken correctly.

"The rule of thumb is that the later a green designer gets involved in a project, the more expensive it can be," says William Craig, an architect for the sustainable design firm Re:Vision Architecture.

Craig also notes that the first big steps — picking the site, orienting the house to get the most sun, figuring out where the windows go — are "cost-neutral," but have a huge impact on the efficiency of the house.

Though green building is generally thought of as more expensive than regular building, most experts in the field say that the added cost is minimal if anything. Jill Kowalski, executive director of the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, says that having an "educated, integrated design approach" will keep costs down.

"You can do a green building on any budget," says Kowalski. "You just have to make it a priority."

Jackie O'Neill, who built the area's first LEED-certified house in Perkiomen last April, constructed a net-zero energy home at only 3 percent above cost. (Net-zero energy means that over the course of a year, the house produces as much as energy as it consumes and, with operating expenses far exceeding the cost of building any home, this means huge savings.) O'Neill's twin sister also built a net-zero house next door and, with the experience gained from the first endeavor, the second house had no extra building cost.

"I think we've proved that there is no reason to build anything but a green home," says O'Neill.

Bill Marsden, a green architect, says that while looking for certification is useful, another approach is to work with your existing builder and get them to go green. "It's not that different," says Marsden, who does nothing but green design. "The materials are still the same."

Welcome to the Big Green Building: The Urban Green Partnership's Big Green Building, to be completed by 2008, will be located at the intersection of South and Broad streets. The 70,000-square-foot building will be home to retail outlets, residential apartments, office units, a research lab and a community garden.

What's important, added Marsden, is understanding all the elements of sustainability and convincing your builder that it's in their best interest to adopt these principles. The first element, energy efficiency, is gained by simple steps such as insulating walls and windows, plugging air leaks and using compact fluorescent lamps.

According to Robinson, most homes in Philadelphia aren't insulated properly and, on average, waste about 25 percent of their energy. This can be remedied easily by securing a home-energy audit through the Energy Coordinating Agency (www.ecasavesenergy.org); home energy audits test all the areas in the house where energy may be wasted and offer estimates about how much it would take to make the house completely efficient. The audits usually cost around $300 depending on the structure and are also available for low-income families at low or no cost.

The second element of sustainability is resource efficiency. This takes into account how much energy is used in shipping materials and in building processes. Resource efficiency can be acquired by buying from local providers and reusing materials during building, such as telling your contractor to reuse plywood on the kitchen floor instead of buying new wood.

Using renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind, is the third element of sustainability that can also be applied to any home. Though solar power is extremely efficient, it requires adding solar panels to the house and may be more cost-effective if building an entirely new structure, instead of just adding to an existing home. For existing homes, Marsden recommends wind power, which can be obtained with a phone call to your energy provider.

In Philadelphia, few providers offer energy alternatives. The Energy Cooperative is a member-owned co-op that uses wind power and biomass, costing an average of $107 monthly. PECO also has a wind option, which can be added to your existing electricity bill for an extra $17.78 a month. More information about other energy alternatives is available at www.cleanyourair.org.

Though going green may require a little extra work and sometimes a little extra cash, the savings are immediate and the impact on the environment crucial. With the price of petroleum products rising, experts say that the cost of going green now is insignificant compared to what energy costs may be in the future.

Kowalski summed it up: "Do you want to pay now or pay later?"

(editorial@citypaper.net)

 

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