LEED Credit Tracking Software

Software Advice has released the first in a series of "state of the industry" reports to share their observations on construction software trends over the last year. One of the major trends they reported was the increased demand for software to track LEED credits.

Just as LEED certification has grown in popularity; so too has the need to track the detailed documentation requirements related to earning LEED credits. At their core, projects seeking LEED certification need document control and efficient communication. This is the key functionality that project management software (e.g. EADOC, Procore, e-Builder) offers. Consequently, Software Advice has noticed an increase in adoption of software for LEED projects. Additionally, a number of software companies are now building specific LEED credit tracking modules right into their systems.

Living Walls

We have all heard about green roofs and know about their environmental advantages, but there is a new concept that is taking root, especially in urban environments: green walls or living walls. Better than the old ivy-covered buildings, which can be adversely affected by the vines, these walls are designed to feature a variety of different plants in a vertical environment, and provide all of their needs for moisture and support right on the wall.

These walls can be either exterior of interior, and they provide advantages in both situations. On the outside they will shade the wall from the intensity of the sun, and thus moderate the temperature considerably, as well as provide lovely textural contrast and beauty. Plant surfaces, as a result of transpiration, do not rise more than 4–5 °C above the ambient and are sometimes even cooler. On the inside they will filter and oxygenate the air, providing a healthier indoor environment, while also creating the calming effect that natural plants tends to have on most people.

Vertical gardens can be grown on just about any type of wall, with or without the use of soil. Many living wall kits come with modular forms that are assembled and applied to a frame that then is affixed to the wall. The most common frame for sale today is a panel that is self-supporting and can be set up independently or attached to a real wall. It is then filled with soil or a soil-less medium and planted. Once the initial panels are in place living walls require little maintenance. They are designed so that their upkeep is about the same as a landscaped garden.

When you combine the obvious environmental benefits of living walls with their sheer beauty I anticipate that we will be seeing many more examples of this wonderful art form. For more details and photos see greenhomebuilding.com.

Super-Insulated Houses

I am pleased to introduce a new "expert" panelist at www.greenhomebuilding.com. Robert Riversong has created his own form of the Larsen Truss building system, and specializes in super-insulated houses. He teaches these techniques, and many other subjects, at the Yestermorrow School in Vermont.

In an article about his work, Robert states, "I've been using and modifying the Larsen Truss super-insulated wall system for 20 years and can build a 12" thick wall (R-40+) with no more lumber than a conventional 2x6 house, in part because I eliminate exterior wall sheathing and use t-braces and full 3/4" drop siding over housewrap. And, with the air-tight drywall system instead of vapor barrier and dense-pack cellulose, there's almost no thermal bridging and a 3 bedroom house can be heated with less than a cord of wood per year here in New England.

"I also use native, rough-sawn green full-dimension lumber, rough-sawn subfloor and roof deck, and rough-sawn exterior trim. The load-bearing wall is 2x4 24" oc and the exterior chord of the parallel chord wall truss is a 2x3, extending from sill to rafter tail and attached to studs with rough-sawn 1x4 gussets 24" oc."

"The open wall cavities makes the installation of mechanicals simple, since there is little drilling necessary. The three air barriers (drywall, dense pack, housewrap) make the walls virtually impermeable to infiltration. The dense pack cellulose makes the walls highly fire resistant and extremely quiet. Insects and rodents don't like the boric acid used as fire retardant in the cellulose, so these two universal problems are minimized or eliminated. The cellulose is more hygroscopic than wood, so it not only can absorb and release any diffused moisture that might get into the wall cavities but also draws any potential moisture away from the wooden frame, thus protecting it (foam insulations will do the opposite)."

"The only plywood in the house is for door and window boxes, as this makes a better air-tight seal than boards, and for a couple of interior shear walls. Let-in metal t-bracing in exterior and interior load-bearing walls and wooden under-rafter diagonal bracing sufficiently stiffens the structure, particularly once the sealed drywall is installed."

"I find that going from conventional construction to superinsulation adds no more than 5% to the cost of a house and the payback is enormous, both in energy savings and comfort. Some banks are offering higher debt-to-income ratios to mortgagees who buy or build highly efficient homes, since they need so much less income to operate it."

If you have any questions about the Larsen Truss building system or super-insulated homes in general, Robert is happy to answer them. Go to greenhomebuilding.com/ask_the_experts to send your question.

An Alternative Home Tour

This year’s Twentieth Annual San Luis Valley Energy Fair held in Crestone, Colorado featured three different concurrent homes tours on a Sunday afternoon. It was hard to decide which tour to take, since they all were intriguing. Ultimately the impulse toward simplicity and sustainability won out and I chose to join the walking tour in Crestone to avoid driving and to get some more exercise.



We met our tour leader, Jeremiah, at Crestone’s Town Park and hiked the few blocks to visit Carmin’s passive solar strawbale home. I remember going over her evolving plans several times with her as she approached the actual building phase. I’m sure that this planning has paid off for her, since there is very little that she would change about the house.

The passive solar aspect has been most rewarding, in that the average floor temperature during the winter has remained at 65 degrees F. This means that she only really needs supplemental heat during periods of gray days. In fact, she says that the upper clerestory windows provide too much direct sun in the winter, so she has added scrim cloth to soften the glare from these windows. One other thing she would do differently is to shed the roof towards the south instead of the north, so that the snow wouldn’t pile up so much, but would melt off instead.

A short hike through the woods brought us our next stop: Annie’s new strawbale yoga studio and home. Annie announced that the most sustainable aspect of her place is the location; she and her students can easily walk into town, which eliminates much driving.

First we inspected the yoga studio, a lovely, invitingly open space with floating bamboo floors and vaulted ceiling. There is a mechanical room that houses all of the equipment associated with her photovoltaic electrical system and the active solar water and space heating system, which serve both the home and the studio. Solar heated water is pumped through hydronic tubes embedded in the floors, and these heat the areas above them. The solar water heating panels on the roof of the studio have a drain-back arrangement to avoid freezing problems. Annie’s residence does have some passive solar heat gain, which is augmented by the adobe floors that act as thermal mass.
The PV panels are mounted on a pedestal south of the studio, and the rack can be manually repositioned seasonally to optimize their orientation. She has a net-metering arrangement with SLV Rural Electric, so that any excess electricity that is produced will actually run her meter backwards! For backup electricity, in case the power grid goes down, she has a battery bank, but this rarely gets used so she expects that batteries will last a very long time.

A short walk down the street brought us to the compound where both Jeremiah’s and Adam’s families live. They are proud of the work they have done on the property to advance various aspects of permaculture design, in terms of rain-water catchment and grey water reuse. There is a lovely pond that Jeremiah constructed that collects water that can be used for plants and livestock.

Adam’s house is nearly finished after several years of hard work. It is a hybrid structure, consisting of a central core cylinder of strawbale walls with appendages of wood-framed walls. The insulation for the wooden portions is sprayed soy-based foam. Much of the interior plaster is of earthen materials. There is an interestingly designed passive solar greenhouse attachment to the south. Adam admits that his lack of planning for his house has cost him some difficulties with lost time and money.

Just up the hill from Adam’s home is Jeremiah’s work-in-progress: a partially underground dwelling that he is building mostly on his own. He started out with having a large hole excavated with a backhoe. Then he carefully sifted through all of the excavated soil and threw the larger stones back into the hole. Next, he constructed a heavy timber-frame supported roof that is covered by thick EPDM waterproof membrane. Originally he was planning to turn this into a green roof, but later decided to fashion it for water catchment instead, so there will be a mat of gravel over the membrane to protect it and help filter the water.

The entire southern wall of the home is wood-framed for glass and passive solar heat. The rest of the walls are finished with stonework (using all of the stones that he threw in earlier) as infill between the wood posts. These walls are insulated on the outside with several inches of foam, and then protected with a moisture barrier before being backfilled. A room in the far back will serve as a cool pantry/storage area and the walls here were fashioned like those that the famous $50 underground house book advocates, with wooden slats attached to wooden posts, protected with plastic and then bermed with soil.

Jeremiah’s house is likely the most economical of all the houses we toured, since he claims that he will spend under $20,000 for the entire project. Being substantially underground and rather small, it will also likely be one of the most energy efficient homes.

It was threatening rain when we hurried over to Keith’s home, with Jeremiah leading the way on one of his ponies. This is another hand-made labor of love, with Keith doing most of the work. He is obviously a master at timber-frame construction, as the expansive vaulted cathedral ceilings proudly demonstrate.

Sandwiched between the massive timbers are thick, home-made structural insulated panels. The roof panels are a full foot thick, constructed of OSB skin with custom TGI ribs and partially soy-based foam (he has his own foaming machine). He claims that these panels provide R-65 insulation, while the thinner wall panels provide R-32. All of this insulation helps hold in the passive solar heat from the southern glass. Most of this glass is not protected from the summer sun with shaded overhangs, but with such a high vaulted interior, overheating in the summer may not be an issue…it was certainly comfortable inside the day we were there.

There is a full basement in this house, and some of this space is devoted to the equipment for regulating and distributing both the solar water and solar electric panels on the roof. The rusty color of the roof is intentional: he used tin-core metal roofing that is designed to provide a natural rusty coating, while keeping the metal from corroding all the way through.

As we left Keith’s impressive abode, the threatening rain was beginning to materialize, so I scurried along the side of the road to seek shelter in my waiting car. It was an afternoon well-spent, with much camaraderie and learning. I certainly have a better sense of the sustainable wonders that are harbored in unique Crestone.

Green Guidelines and Certification for your Home

There are several ways for your home to meet guidelines or gain certification for certain standards for "green" qualities. The reasons for doing this vary. It might be that a particular certification will allow the home to qualify for special financing or participate in some desirable program. It might be that the certification will make the home more desirable for resale. Or it might simply be that this will prove that the home meets the high environmental standards of the builder or homeowner. I'll list below the most popular guidelines and certification programs that are available.

By far the most publicized and the most expensive certification program is LEED for homes. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, and is administered by the U.S. Green Building Council. Initially these standards were being applied solely to commercial buildings, but now they have transitioned to residential as well. LEED certification is most commonly sought by builders and contractors as a way to attract clients or qualify for specific programs. It requires a fair amount of detailed analysis and the inspection by a trained inspector. This can cost between $500 and $3000. What is being evaluated is the location and linkages, sustainable sites, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, water efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and homeowner awareness.

The National Green Building Standard is a collaborative effort between the International Code Council (ICC) and National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). This book provides the "green" practices that can be incorporated into a variety of areas, from new homes to high-rise multifamily buildings, and from remodels and additions to hotels and motels. This standard outlines effective, relevant green practices, including lot design, preparation and development, resource, energy, and water efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and operation, maintenance, and building owner education. By defining four threshold levels of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Emerald, the standard gives builders the means to achieve their sustainability goals – whether they are designing a basic, entry-level green building or aiming for the highest level sustainable "green" building with energy savings of 65 percent or higher.

The Energy Star Qualified Homes certification is administered by the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Dept. of Energy. Similar to the Energy Star rating system for home appliances, this certification is often employed by custom builders as well as production builders to enhance the desirability of their homes. The cost is that of a professional energy audit on the home. What is being checked is effective insulation, high performance windows, tight construction and ducts, efficient heating and cooling equipment, lighting and appliances.

The Green Building Guidelines were written by the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council. These guidelines read more like a textbook that discusses why, how, where and when to implement specific parameters. They deal with community and site planning, renewable energy, the building envelope, energy efficiency, water use, indoor environmental quality, materials, operation and maintenance. There are diagrams, pictures, and other resources, including checklists from some of the other green programs.

Health House guidelines, created by the American Lung Association, is actually a certification program. The objective of this is to assure that new homes do not adversely affect people's health. Specially trained builders pay attention to the site, building enclosure, finishes and furnishings, mechanical equipment, commissioning, construction hygiene, safety and health. The focus is on air quality, but efficiency is also considered.

The bottom line with all of these programs is that the homeowner will end up with a healthier, more energy-efficient, and durable home. And all of us will benefit from a cleaner environment.

The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome

The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream is a timely book that analyzes the origins and eventual failure of what has been known as the "American Dream." John F. Wasik, the author of this very well researched and written book is a finance columnist for Bloomberg News, so he has his finger on the pulse of American finance and folly. Published in 2009, The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome is full of insight about how the dream has become a nightmare and ways that we need to proceed so that we may sleep contentedly again.

Europeans began settling in the Americas with the dream of establishing private domains that would provide wealth and security. Thomas Jefferson popularized and manifested the "pursuit of happiness" through land ownership with establishing his grand Monticello in Virginia. He believed that all free men should have the opportunity to follow his lead and he imagined a huge grid of towns and farms extending across the continent. There would be lots of open space between individual homesteads, and each domain would be more or less autonomous.

If you fast forward to the twentieth century, you can see how Jefferson's dream became manifest in the movement of people out of cities' central districts to establish their own little Monticellos in the suburbs. Homeownership became a way of building and preserving wealth. Everybody could have, and was entitled to, his own little kingdom. The cul-de-sac syndrome was born.

Wasik outlines the history of how this simple impulse for a better life became a real estate mania, where leveraged debt became a tool for creating wealth through homeownership. The belief that real estate values only appreciate fueled a speculative frenzy that created one of the largest bubbles of overvalued commodities ever: homes. Tempted by mortgage companies with easily accessible loans, even people who obviously could not afford homes jumped on the bandwagon.

As we are so painfully aware now, the bubble suddenly burst in 2008, and the fallout from this will be felt for years. The author uses case histories of real people to demonstrate just how difficult these post-bubble times have been.

John Wasik doesn't stop the narrative with his description of how unsustainable the real estate bubble was. He discusses what is probably even more important: how unsustainable the homes themselves are in terms of design, placement within the infrastructure, and energy consumption. He shows how these factors are adding to the misery of homeowners who cannot afford to pay to heat and cool their mini mansions, nor can they afford the necessary commute to work. The cost of these energy inputs (largely from fossil fuels) is stifling both the consumer and the earth's biosphere.

In general the infrastructure that supports suburban development is not borne directly by the inhabitants or the contractors who built them; these costs are passed on to government agencies. So this is another way that such sprawl is economically unsustainable.

The cul-de-sac syndrome is negatively affecting our health, productivity, and family life. All of those hours spent driving is lost time that could have been spent walking or getting exercise, doing productive work, or having a good time with the family.

As an antidote to all of this malaise, the author outlines a variety of strategies. He describes how houses can be built to heat and cool themselves through passive solar design and how they can even produce their own electricity. Water can be conserved in many ways. And often these greener homes are healthier to live in because attention is given to possibly toxic materials.

Wasik sees green manufactured housing as a strong component of sustainable development, and he gives examples of these. He points out that factory-built homes generally waste less material, can be constructed faster, and are designed with proven efficiency.

One aspect of home building that I feel is largely neglected in this book, and in much of the "green" building trade, is any discussion of the embodied energy inherent in both conventional and manufactured housing. From an environmental standpoint this is a significant factor, in that all of the energy that goes into manufacturing industrial products for home construction, and transporting them to the site is a form of pollution. I would like to see greater recognition that natural building techniques and materials, such as adobe, rammed earth, cordwood, strawbale, and earthbag building have an important place in designing a sustainable future.

A major thrust of any movement toward a sustainable residential complex is the recognition that inner city, urban dwelling is considerably greener than living in the suburbs outside the city's core. Wasik shows that not only are people finding that they save money by being able to walk or take mass transit, but they are healthier and more productive because they are not spending that time commuting. It is a high priority for cities to examine their zoning and building codes to accommodate more dense urban and greener residential development.

So the new American Dream may take awhile to realize, but once we begin to attain it we will become more secure with a smaller carbon footprint, we will become healthier, and we will lead happier, more fulfilling lives. This new dream is less about each person having his own fiefdom and more about all of us coming together to realize a common dream of living in balance with nature on earth.

John Wasik has a blog where he explores many of the issues touched on in this article: dailywombat.blogspot.com and he also has a website: www.johnwasik.com You can find his book, The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome listed at Amazon.com.

Radio Interview with Kelly Hart

In May of 2009, I was interviewed for nearly an hour by Veronica Entwistle for her “Paradigm Shifters” Radio Program, at www.bbsradio.com. Veronica and the station have been kind enough to allow you the opportunity of listening to some or all of this interview directly. Either the entire program, or specific aspects of sustainable architecture and natural building can be heard as individual segments. You can listen to all of this from this page. The topics covered in the interview include:

natural building
sustainable architecture
strawbale building
earthbag building
Earthships
passive solar heating
cost of natural building
papercrete
education
vernacular architecture
recycling building materials
underground building