Hi, I’m new here and really have been enjoying the past threads. I have been going to grad school for the last couple of years and have really looked at a lot of sustainability issues surrounding construction. An earlier post brought up the point about FH setting the bar for sustainability in home building. I do think that the magazine should be on the forefront of this issue. If you look at the commercial building construction, you will see an ever-increasing amount of buildings applying for LEED certification. The government, universities, and private practice are all starting to want the benefits of a eco-friendly building.
I understand that most people will look at the cost-benefit ratio to see how long it takes before their initial investment pays off and that this is a major part of the decision making process. However, I do think that we should be implementing some “best practice” energy and material-related standards. I don’t see why as builders we don’t create the demand and support for building sustainable homes (reducing impact on environment and increasing benefit to customer at the same time). I read a lot of these posts on FH toolbox and I sometimes start to question the level of professionalism of the people that seem so against the idea of green building. We should be constantly raising the bar.
Replies
Welcome to Breaktime, Warnera--
I agree with you that when we build we should be conscious about the environmental impact of what we do. Many "green" practices take little extra time or money besides some initial planning.
The flip side is that as builders we are not in a position to "create demand" for green building, we are middle men. The customers are the only ones who can create the demand, we can supply the product. Having all the features in a house people are accustomed to, plus make a building green, costs extra. If the customer is not willing to pay more why should we eat the difference?
I don't know of anyone here who "goes against the idea of green building". Most of us want to and do build houses to last generations, and to do that we need to use time-tested materials and techniques.
Many, many of the products and techniques introduced over the last fifty years in the interest of saving energy, or to save money which would allow more money to be spent on energy-saving items, have not held up or have actually caused damage to the building or its occupants. It's not "green" building if the building needs to be torn down because of mold or it's just plain ugly.
I am a big supporter of "green" building, but there are good reasons why we do many of the things the way we do.
Mike Maines
1)our job is to build the best house possible for the least amount of monet while maintain the biggest profit margin possible.2) its all about money, not feel good emotion3) nobody can define what green is
1) Yes
2) No--It's about money, but I would not compromise my values when building. I won't do anything illegal, or lie, or be intentionally wasteful.
3) Agree. That's why I put "green" in " "" ".
BB, you really need to work on your wordiness. You could have cut at least six or seven words out of your post and it would still make sense.
but then I wouldnt be me
<<I sometimes start to question the level of professionalism of the people that seem so against the idea of green building. We should be constantly raising the bar.>>
Actually I think the short-sighted thinking of these anti-green folks is probably pretty telling. Excellence in construction ends up being very closely related to profitability. If you think building is about charging as much as you can while building as cheaply as you can get away with in order to maximize your profits you are probably not going to be maximally profitable in the long run. The bottom line is that excellence is way more fun than mediocrity and profitability does run more to the excellent builders than to the guys who go for profit over all.
Green Building is just high performance and high quality building as measured on a seven point scale by a third party certification group such as LEED-H or GBI. It's a way for builders to get third party certification of building excellence and it is something we can use to convince prospects that what we have to offer is worth more than the guy across town.
Green is a way to optimize the quality of your product and enhance your bottom line while providing better long term value to your customer and helping the planet through reducing your contribution to global warming.
My goal is to build the best home I can and provide a great value to my customer but I did manage to give my wife a sports car for Christmas...
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."