When we started this project it was our goal to try and do some simple and smart things to ensure that we minimized our impact on the environment both in the short term (during the construction) but as well in the long term (sustainability). As we ventured forth, there certainly was a steep learning curve as it related to what constituted truly “green friendly”. On top of that we had to make some tough decisions on what products would give us the greatest impact for our dollar in order to stay true to our “modest modern” budget. Often times this meant that we had to do a great deal of research and take into consideration a lot of factors that we hadn’t anticipated.

As the popularity of living and building green grows, so many companies are trying to find and or put a green twist on their product, making it challenging to discern the truly green friendly from the so so. At the same time there are a great deal of green items on the market, that truly have a strong green friendly offering to them and garner a great deal of media attention. Among these are products like green rooftops, geothermal heating, solar panels and SIPs. Often times these items with the greatest green “sex appeal” are some of the bigger ticket items. However as we discovered the greenest things are often times common sense things involving reducing your homes over-all energy consumption. This often means increasing the insulation values of your walls  and windows and minimizing your daily energy consumption through the use of EnergyStar appliances and high efficiency heating and cooling methods. With this knowledge under our belt there was one big question looming over the completion of our project — How did we do?

A few weeks back as we were just starting to settle into our house, Jimmie Sparks from the Neighborhood Energy Connection (a nonprofit that helps people save money and the environment through energy efficient living) stopped buy to do some testing on our house. The house was scored for it’s over-all energy consumption on what is called a HERS test which gages your homes energy consumption as a whole, along with your carbon footprint.

The results were very satisfying to hear. Our home received an overall score of 44 and was rated 5+ stars on a 5+ star rating system. Almost 2x as efficient as needed to qualify as an EnergyStar home. As well, we were able to exceed the reduction of our carbon output vs the IECC (International Energy Conservation Code) standard set in 2006 by 31%.

Although all of this feels good I found myself wanting to have done more. Maybe in the near future advancements in technology will make both solar energy and wind energy options cost effective and viable for the average home owner to implement as retro-fit items. If that is the case I will certainly consider trying to improve my HERS score and lowering my carbon footprint even more.

Jimmie sets up the blower test through our garage door entry.

Using in infrared camera he’s able to see where we are losing heat in the house. In a traditionally framed home every 16 inches where a stud appears is usually a place of heat loss but not the case with SIPS and Thermomass wall systems we used.

Jimmie and Corey take a photo of our windows and are amazed by how well they retain the heat. They were actually able to see their reflections in the infrared picture where as they usually appear pure black.

Jimmie shares some of his finding with Curt Stendel from Panel Works plus (our SIPS panel provider) and Corey Benedict from Benedict and Associates (our General Contractor) some of his findings, while my youngest takes a little nap in his nice, cozy, new home.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.