Green Home Building: Money-Saving Strategies for an Affordable, Healthy, High-Performance Home

by Miki Cook, Doug Garrett

Overview

A comprehensive guide to building green on any budget.

According to conventional wisdom, building a green home is an expensive endeavor. The standard approach treats green as an add-on, tacking "premium" products, finishes, and equipment onto a traditional home design. As a result, many green home projects end up over budget or fail to achieve their environmental and performance goals.

Green Home Building explodes the myth that green homes have to cost more. Using proven methods based on applied building science, the authors show how to:

• Lower base construction costs to provide funding for high performance upgrades
• Achieve a net-zero energy home, including "zero-ing" water, waste, carbon, and associated costs within fifteen years
• Live affordably into the future, despite anticipated rising costs for fuel, water, materials, taxes, and health care

This comprehensive guide to building green on any budget defines the strategies that maximize the return on green investments. Written for anyone who has ever been swayed by the argument that the price tag limits how green a home can be, Green Home Building is a must-read for builders, contractors, architects, designers, and homeowners.

Miki Cook is a green building and sustainability consultant who has dedicated her career to educating contractors and the public on the strategies, methods, and benefits of green homes.

Doug Garrett has trained thousands of homebuilders, architects, and sub-contractors to build energy-efficient homes using applied building science to improve comfort, durability, and healthfulness while meeting or exceeding the energy code.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781550925739
Publisher:	New Society Publishers
Publication date:	05/16/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	436
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Miki Cook is a green building and sustainability consultant for the oldest green building program in the nation, Austin Energy Green Building (AEGB). She has spent her career in the residential construction industry, where for the last two decades she has focused on green building certification including acting as Green Rater for the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED for Homes and Energy Star programs and ICC-700, The National Green Building Standard. More recently, Miki has dedicated her career to educating contractors and the public on the strategies, methods and benefits of green homes, and helping them to achieve those goals.

Doug Garrett, CEM, founded Austin Energy's Residential and Multi-Family Energy Conservation programs. He has studied building science, indoor air quality, moisture management, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning throughout his career. In 1996, Doug established the first building science consulting business in Texas, and continues to provide building science-based forensic investigations, diagnostics and design consultations for clients and home builders across the nation. Doug has presented hundreds of seminars on applied building science, energy efficiency, moisture management, energy codes, air conditioning, indoor air quality and green building, and has served on numerous advisory councils and task forces for high performance industry standards, energy codes, alternative fuels, health concerns and housing affordability.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Sarah Gutterman
Introduction
We're All Green with Envy
What Is a Green Home?
How Can I Build an Affordable Green Home?

section one: Show Me the Money
1. Location, Location, Location
Smart Growth
Analyzing Your Building Site
Other Considerations for Site Selection
Payback on This Investment

2. Size Matters
Assessing Your Needs
Paybacks on Right-Sizing Your Home

3. Design, Design, Design: Everything You Need to Know
1. Designing for Your Site
2. Designing for Passive Systems
3. Designing for Resource Efficiency
Payback On Design Elements

4. Building Products and Materials: Shades of Green
Global Citizens
Building Product Research
Selecting Building Materials
How We Use Building Materials
Paybacks: Return on Investment for Building Materials: The Real Cost of Housing

5. Construction Waste: The 8,000-Pound Gorilla of Cost Savings
Money in the Dumpster
Three Strategies for Waste Reduction
Payback: Return on Investment for Construction Waste Diversion Practices

6. Equipment and Systems
Efficiency Ratings
HVAC: Heating, Ventilation and Cooling Systems
Hot Water Systems
Rainwater, Greywater and Onsite Sewage Systems
Electrical Systems
Paybacks: Return on Investment from High-efficiency System Upgrades

7. Health and Environment
Toxins
Strategies for Improved Indoor Air Quality
Other Health Concerns

8. Outdoor Living
Defining Your Outdoor Living Spaces
Landscaping

9. Green Bling
The Modest Green Home
The Mainstream Green Home
The Custom Green Home
Avoid Wasting Money

10. Keeping It Green
Periodic Maintenance and Repairs
Commissioning
Lifestyle Choices
Protecting Your Health
Green Makeovers
Green Power Alternatives

section two: Getting to Zero
11. The Zero Energy Capable Home Model
Net Zero Defined
The Typical American Home
Our Baseline Home
Net Zero Home Model

12. Net Zero Water
The Water-Energy Connection
Where Does the Water Go?
How Much Water Is Available
Case Studies
How Low Can You Go?

13. Zero Waste
Waste Beyond the Household
Waste Prevention
Waste Diversion
The Key to Making Changes in Your Life

14. Zero Your Carbon Footprint
Revisiting Section One from a Carbon Perspective
Our Carbon Reduction Plan

15. Zero Cost Premium
Reducing Your Total Cost of Ownership
Reducing Your Construction Costs
Healthy and High Performance
Putting It All Together

End Notes
Index
About the Authors

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Miki and Doug nailed it! This book should be required reading for every architect, builder, and homeowner aiming to build a home. Green building is about how the house operates as a system. They explain the components, tradeoffs, and decisions that lead to an energy-efficient, comfortable, healthy, affordable home. Finally, a comprehensive book that spells out information I've been sharing with my clients for years."
— Wayne Jeansonne, President, Solluna Builders LLC, a custom homebuilder in Austin, Texas

"Finally, a book about building green that's for the people. Miki Cook walked us through the construction of our very affordable four-star green energy home in Austin. With her guidance we learned that green construction is not about bells and whistles, nor is it a vanity project for those with means. It's about going back to the common-sense strategies of sustainability: selecting the right location, designing with the environment in mind, using only what you need, and choosing materials that are healthy for you and your surrounding community. Along with the Doug Barrett, she has written a very engaging book that covers all these principles and more."
— Eric Tang and Paula Rojas, Austin, Texas

"In Green Home Building, Doug and Miki have provided an encyclopedic guide for home owners with ambitions to build their own green homes. Particular kudos are due for addressing some important but oft-neglected issues such as "shape factor" and the life of the building beyond today's needs of the household — what about 10, 30, 50 years hence? This will prove to be an invaluable resource for those committed to a deep understanding of what it means to build a green home."
— Ann V. Edminster, M.Arch., LEED AP, author of Energy Free: Homes for a Small Planet