Engineer’s Green Home Check List
Green Homes using a ‘Green Team’ Approach
Green Home Building, in the minority right now, will soon become mainstream. Once that happens, it will be the ‘non green’ production and McMansion builders that will become the minority. And then when THAT happens, home building, that honorable well established but tough profession, will become even tougher.
Future green home builders can choose to go it alone like most green niche builders do now, or can choose to hire green designers and hope those designers get it right (buildable and cost effective). Or they can consider taking a project team approach I call the ‘green team’ approach.
The green team’s challenge will be, from design-day-one, to combine an architectural designer’s unique skills with a diverse technical and real world knowledge of a green leaning engineer, with the experienced green builder. To get a grasp of why this will be needed, check out our free check list : “Green Homes – An Engineer’s Check Listâ€, not a book just a free ‘oh yeah’ check list available by email to [email protected])
Green Teams will become the common way to help create a cost effective build-own-operate living spaces, that are daily-enjoyable, yearly-usable, lifetime-supportable, and always proud-to-invite-you-inside ‘own-able’.
Gary Beck, P.E., LEED AP
Eco-Holdings LLC
Houston, Texas
www.eco-holdings.com
Replies
Green Home Building, in the minority right now, will soon become mainstream. Once that happens, it will be the 'non green' production and McMansion builders that will become the minority.
Maybe you are right. I appreciate your passion.
But a lot of us thought that way in the 70's
It will take some type of consensus on what "green" is, a huge cultural shift, and a "killer application" to get us there.
500 years ago everyone built "green"...
Don't you think the more widespread recognition of the challenge of climate change is your 'killer application'.
Yes, we saw it thirty years ago, but we failed to carry everybody with us, which is why we felt like voices crying in the wilderness. But we mustn't let the disillusionment of those times colour our approach to what's happening now.
Better late than never - we hope.
Good Building
Gary
isnt this classified as SPAM MAIL
Yes
.. if I was selling something. The list is free, want a copy?
naw, I'm anti green, it just a big scam for bleeding heart liberal to feel good about themselves. sent my copy to Gore.
Gore invented Global WarmingSamT
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. [Einstein] Tks, BossHogg.
I'm a republican who has voted republican for 30 years and although I really like trees a lot, I don't think I have never actually hugged one. Also FYI building green is actually a replublican plot to make the rich richer by taking money from the bleeding heart liberals while improving the environment. Boy, are we smart or what?
Welcome to Breaktime--sounds like you'll fit in just fine around here.
PS--I have hugged a tree. It's scratchy and doesn't hug you back.
"This is a process, not an event."--Sphere
And I'm a legitimate certifiable Tool Whore.--Dieselpig
naw, I'm anti green, it just a big scam for bleeding heart liberal to feel good about themselves. sent my copy to Gore.
LOL
My green is the cash staying in the wallet when I score a big find at the free pallet wood lot.
If i cant build a shed for under 5 cents per sq ft, it dont git built.
If its free why don't you just post it in your message for all to have? Or is it not free?
“Free Engineeringâ€â€¦ or something free from an engineer - is that an oxymoron or a dichotomy? I am going to buy a book on Amazon called "In Defense of Free" in which someone named Fred Wilson wrote “free is a great way to make money. You just have to know how you are going to get paid for being free.†Until I buy that book and find the time to read it, visit our meager website (http://www.eco-holdings.com) and then send us an email and I will send our 1-page "Engineer's Green Home Check List" to you - for free.
Passion and killer apps will have nothing to do with it. Money is the trigger (green saves and makes money depending on your viewpoint) and smart efficient green design planning is already proliferating*. My suggestion is green design planning can be communicated in easy ways like a check list. you can bet that "Green Homes for Dummies" is probably being printed right now and will be in Barnes and Nobles by October.
I am not a tree-hugger but I did enjoyed the 70s as a semi-hippie-athlete-engineer. I clearly remember enough to tell you it is quite a bit different now. You know, little stuff like instant globally available total information on any subject under the sun plus awareness of slightly problematic things like urban sprawl and global warming etc.
*PS: You must have seen my presentation where I start my 'green' at 10,000 years ago. In it I also cover the wave of green that is clear to anyone remotely working in the home building industry: 1970's Niche home builders began, 1987 ‘Sustainable Development’ coined, 1990 ‘Green Home Building’ coined, 1991 Austin - First Official Green Program, 1993 US Green Building Council formed, 1995 Denver - HBA Green Program, as of 2004 61,000 green homes built, more than 30 Green Building Programs, then just this Feb 2007 the NAHB + ICC* announces Green Home standard development. Why is this last one important? The *International Code Council is the defacto author of the current US Home Building Code- the Int’l Residential Code.
I am a design/build contractor in Northern California. As far as I can tell, the biggest bang for your "green" buck would be to have all these engineers that over engineer things to the point of absurdity to quit it. Just make it work. What is wrong with just good old UBC? or the new IRC? In the past two or three years, just about every project that we built where we didn't do the design was so over engineered that we had to charge more to the customer, and 'waste' more precious resources just to satisfy the over engineering that was included in the original design. In several cases, I just refused to waste so much time, material and money and had my engineer re-design portions of the project.
I think that this problem stems from the fact that these engineers just had no incentive to just make it adequate. The more engineering in the plans, the more work the engineer has done, and the more that he can charge. Or, they just don't know any better?
Before anyone thinks differently, I have a tremendous amount of respect for engineers in general. The civil engineer that I use it just great. I have worked with him for over 5 years now and it is wonderful to have him help me make my projects work out.
What has been the experience of other contractors on this point?
So, just ordinary thoughtful design that is adequate, not overbuilt and wasteful, will help any project be 'green'.
You make a great point. It would be better and simpler if all homes could be built prescriptively following the UBC or SBC or even the IRC. Unfortunately the old prescriptive methods just don't work for the common massive open spans in the first floor loaded by two or three stories above in a 7000 sf McMansion whose owner has chosen non conventional structural systems and materials. And I would place signicant blame on litigation practices and the need to reduce that risk by the builders, designers, engineers, and contractors.
Very few custom home engineers have ever had a custom builder say "take all the time you need to reduce materials and to do it right ". More likely he has heard "if you want this project you need cut your price 25% and have it done in a week". Of course the adoption of new more complex building codes has caused some engineers to over-engineer in order to 'get it done fast' and to reduce risk.
Ultimately, it is the builder's choice. For a home builder, an engineeer is just another resource for the building process. If you do not feel you are getting a fair value from your engineer, split some of your work and try out another engineer.
or even the IRC ....
The IRC is the most anti-green piece of crap code I've seen. Local inspectors (sons city goes by IRC) wont let me use salvaged BS5565 baltic birch for sheathing 'cause it dont have an APA stamp.
Talk about self serving crap.
Prescriptive is just a way for local political weenies to get more out of your pocket for their cronies..
Hello and thanks for your reply. The over engineering problem comes up on projects that we get where the customer goes out and hires their own design people and has the drawings and engineering done with out our help. The funny part is that they are usually trying to 'do it themselves' and 'save money.' When we get in and do the design part too, I use my engineer and am never dissatisfied with the results as we work together to find the best answers to any situation. That way it not only works structurally, but it is built the way we want to build it. That is why we got into the design/build contracting business. Rob Z, D&R Builders, Inc.
I have recently been called in by an ICF manufacturer as a 3rd party consultant on behalf of an owner who had plans drawn by a registered architect and completely engineered by both a top structural engineering firm and a top MEP engineering firm.
Everything was beautifully detailed and done to the quality normally reserved for a LEED building like a school or library. Then an interesting thing happened, the 'home' contractors start backing away due to the appearance of complexity in the plans - if compared to what they are used to seeing in 'normal' home plans. I am now trying to pull a few favors and help align some green leaning builders to bid on it.
This confirms that home building, even the high tech green type, remains as much an art as is it a science. Maybe the green team approach may have helped provide a more contractor-digestible plan set.
Hello, I don't have an issue with the 'complex appearance' of plans. I have an issue with over building buildings. I have worked on schools and other big commercial jobs and all the detailing is great ( as long as it all works ). The thing for me is that when the engineers or architects overbuild, they are wasting time and materials. This is not green to me. I hope that as part of your green approach, you would discourage wasteful over building.I would like a copy of your green team check list and thanks for discussing this with me.Rob Z, D&R Builders, Inc.
What has been the experience of other contractors on this point?
While I can appreciate the pressures put on engineers and architects by the skyrocketing liability costs, you have a valid gripe. We've had engineers simply throw a rediculous amount of wood at a problem and try to justify it as good building.
An area of green building that recieves far too little talk is simply building for the long-term so future remodels and additions aren't so wasteful.
When everyone is doing it, green building will simply be call building. :-)
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
>>simply building for the long-term so future remodels and additions aren't so wastefulAround here, the buzzword for that is, rather than "sustainability",
"evolutionary" design.
An area of green building that recieves far too little talk is simply building for the long-term so future remodels and additions aren't so wasteful.
Yes! My boss and I were talking about this last week. Clients are asking for "green design", and we know the ambiguity in that. Planning for future changes is a brilliantly simple way to address that.
"This is a process, not an event."--Sphere
And I'm a legitimate certifiable Tool Whore.--Dieselpig