How Green can you go?

Started by jraabe, March 27, 2007, 12:21:44 PM

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jraabe

There was a great exchange on a local forum here on Whidbey Island on the topic of Big Green houses. I just had to share it with these screen shots.







Wow  ::) what could be more green!

glenn-k

#1
Code and modern state of mind will not allow building very green.

The true meaning of green would require the use of low tech materials and code/corporate industry lobbied - prohibited materials.

True green builders will be tearing up straw bales, mixing it with sand and mud and stomping it around with their feet, or digging a hole in the ground and using thinned trees or building with a pile of strawbales and mud in Arizona.

Faux green builders will be grabbing the most currently high tech argon gas filled triple pane plastic framed windows, steel cased, foam filled double insulated doors, electric industry bail out on-grid solar panels w/rip off state approved minimal compensation back to their money donating lobbiest power agencies if you over design.

Follow the money - faux green building is just another money making scheme set up by the corporate lobbiests and their  political prostitutes who write codes and laws to keep separating money from the peasants who's main concern is making a better life for them and their families.

Think I'll go put on my Abercrombie T shirt, Nike running shorts, Victoria's Secret G string, and jog on down to Starbuck's for my morning coffee. ;D


John Raabe

#2
Please, Glenn.... don't post any pictures of your walkabout.  :P

It's true, economics is the tail that wags the dog. There are only a few people I know (you being one, Glenn) who consciously build a house creatively from locally appropriate materials and in the spirit of money AND resource efficiency when they could actually afford something more "mainstream".

I think you enjoy the challenge of doing as much as you can by creative reuse, scrounging and using what is close at hand. It takes courage to stand up and work outside the whole "[highlight]mortgage/code/building industry/real estate complex[/highlight]". Think about your retirement! What is your real estate strategy to maximize you investment return?

For those who don't know what Glenn has built, here's a PRIMER.
None of us are as smart as all of us.

fishing_guy

[highlight]Think I'll go put on my Abercrombie T shirt, Nike running shorts, Victoria's Secret G string, and jog on down to Starbuck's for my morning coffee. [/highlight]
:oJust the thought of that makes me glad I'm in the midwest.
A bad day of fishing beats a good day at work any day, but building something with your own hands beats anything.

glenn kangiser

#4
QuoteThink about your retirement! What is your real estate strategy to maximize you investment return?

We have other conventional places that will take care of that -- the places where we gave into the system  :o were built by others and re-modeled, rebuilt or repaired by me within the confines of the system.  They are not specifically green or anti-green.  Just what is allowed.  We have other property we can add rentals to if we desire.  We have other places we can sell.  I separate my living space from commercial ventures for my own future support.  I cannot be happy in a home built for others (maximizing my investment potential)or by others.  OK so I could but it would not be the same as really mine.

Besides we have social security.   ;D

A home built to maximize your investment potential is not really your home.  It is built for others with others in mind and by others rules.  Thats why most government code prescribed code built homes are uninteresting similar high tech material boxes.  That could by why an owner built home built by and for one specific person or family may not appeal to others as much and without the blessing of the officials will not command as high a price.  Actually I find that while they cannot command the high price they do appeal much more to people who have never been allowed to build as they like.  Most all would love to do it and live in it but do not have the drive to do it - to buck the system, to stand up for their rights, the knowledge to deal with the issues and problems.  They have been beat into believing they can't do it all their lives and are afraid to step outside of the lines  and will not refuse to salivate when the master rings the bell.  http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/pavlov/

You probably cannot have a true green built house within "the system" that is really green.  To maximize green investment values you will have to go with faux green building.  Appeal to the ones who want to pretend that they are the coolest most progressive green environmental advocates and supporters  in their name brand, tres cool, products by applying the latest faux green technologies.   Make the most advanced environmentally correct as advertised by corporate America, building you can.  

When you can appeal to the ones who want to pretend they are green and have the money to do so, not really caring whether they really are or not, then you can cash in on the dollar while supporting the rest who play the game also.

Fads sell.  Tres cool sells.  Pretending and not giving in to the thought that they are causes people to spend way more for something rather than stopping to think - hey - what am I doing -- I could live well in a $30,000 Countryplans owner built home rather than this $500,000 faux green albatross.

But for my personal house, I want to live in one that is part of me, built the way I want it.  If I sold it where would I go -- I have to live somewhere so will not consider the profit potential from my house and it may even cost my kids money to bury me in it.  I give them permission to spit on my grave for not taking this into consideration.   :)  Hopefully there will be enough in the insurance policy or estate sale to take care of the expenses. ;D
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

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glenn kangiser

Sorry to gross you guys out -- we have a jogger around here I call Mr. Spandex.  Put the picture in my weak little mind. ;D
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

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John Raabe

Well said Glenn.  :)

You have a plan and it is both reasonably green and reasonable from an economic perspective. Social Security and our investments will very likely be there for us in our dotage. And, if there should be a major depression rather than the endless prosperity we've all been trained to expect, then the low-cost, easy to maintain owner-built Eco house will be the real bacon saver.

The faux green mini mansion in the suburbs will not be any better off under that scenario. The feel good bamboo flooring doesn't burn that well when you need it for heat.
None of us are as smart as all of us.

glenn kangiser

#7
I was kind of kidding about the social security.  I don't really think there will be enough there for us soon to be old timers to live above the very low poverty level if that much.  Politicians have raided the piggy bank and left only a bunch of IOU's.  Thats what the new Bush plan is there for - to more totally mess up a failing system.

I don't think we will be able to use them to pay bills with, so the only thing left to do is to plan to take care of ourselves and forget about the money we have paid into the system.  More proof that pyramid schemes do not work especially if greedy corrupt politicians are allowed to put their hands in the cookie jar.

Bush info:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/social-security/

What others think - note - I did not currently read all of this -- read some in the past- I do not necessarily agree or disagree with these articles.

http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2007/jan07/07-01-17.html

From the above link:
QuoteTotalization is the bureaucratic buzz word for the plan to put millions of illegal Mexican workers into the U.S. Social Security system. They would collect U.S. benefits based on their U.S earnings under false or stolen Social Security numbers plus alleged earnings in Mexico.

American citizens must work ten years to be eligible for Social Security benefits, but the Totalization agreement would allow Mexicans to qualify with only 18 months of work in the United States, and pretend to make up the difference by assuming work in Mexico. It is highly doubtful that the illegal aliens ever paid into a Mexican system for eight and a half years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35231-2005Mar14.html
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/sep/09/social_security_to_be_phased_out_in_2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR2006020701865.html
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

Please put your area in your sig line so we can assist with location specific answers.

John Raabe

#8
Well, my dotage is up coming faster than yours... I could be cashing in on SS now if I wanted.  ::)

But your point of view doesn't hurt. Plan to survive without it and then if the gravy shows up, great! If not we'll eat the carrots instead and probably live longer anyway.
None of us are as smart as all of us.


glenn kangiser

"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

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MountainDon

#10
I enjoyed the exchange you posted John.

dotage - mental infirmity as a consequence of old age; sometimes shown by foolish infatuations

I don't think I meet the first definition, but I am oh so infatuated with my PC TIGERCLAW Variable Angle TIGER SAW   :)   :-/

Re: SS, you can start collecting before age 65 but you lose 1/2% for each month in advance of your 65th birthday. Whether or not you start early depends on a number of factors. Each case different.

Being a Canadian transplant I decided to dip into the Canadian cookie jar early and treat it as "found money",  but haven't touched the 'merican one. (I've never counted on it being there by  the time I was eligible, so it's gravy  :))
Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.

MountainDon

Quote
From the above link:
QuoteAmerican citizens must work ten years to be eligible for Social Security benefits, but the Totalization agreement would allow Mexicans to qualify with only 18 months of work in the United States, and pretend to make up the difference by assuming work in Mexico. It is highly doubtful that the illegal aliens ever paid into a Mexican system for eight and a half years.
Those eligible  for SS after 10 years working here include LEGAL aliens like riff raff from Canada. C'est moi! I had an official "resident alien" card before I became a naturalized American.

It's a total mistake to provide any special exceptions to citizen or citizen-like benefits for those who have not followed the official route of qualifying. That goes for people from any country. Just my opinion of course.  :)
Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.

glenn kangiser

QuoteI don't think I meet the first definition, but I am oh so infatuated with my PC TIGERCLAW Variable Angle TIGER SAW    :) :-/

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. :)
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

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desdawg

And here I thought green building was when you went to Home Depot and gave them green money for green lumber that is still running sap. Boy was I off the mark. Green building is what our forefathers did 'cause they couldn't afford anything else. Now we have an entire culture trying to emulate that with a checkbook. I recently purchased the first three Foxfire books and was looking at what the Appalachain people did with their own two hands. And what they couldn't do they traded for with a neighbor who could. Green building to me is very hands on and very labor intensive. We live in a society that is way too fast paced & high tech to allow for such a lifestyle. I don't believe we are talking about a finished product so much as a philosophy, a way of thinking and living that has nearly vanished. We call it progress.
I have done so much with so little for so long that today I can do almost anything with absolutely nothing.


glenn kangiser

Great thoughts, desdawg and the way I look at it also.  My grandparents homesteaded in Oregon - did as you mentioned.  Seems it is the way I want to do it although my granddad was not as primitive as me. :-/ :)

I also have the old Foxfire books but haven't spent enough time in them.  Found them in a used bookstore I think.

"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

Please put your area in your sig line so we can assist with location specific answers.

Dimitri

If you over insulate using the best materials avalible to buy or make, and set up a good cooling and heating system invloving the burning of wood most likly for heating, cooling would run off electricity, a non-commercial sized wind turbine (if your selling it back into the grid here and not using "net 0" billing your considered a power producer and taxed as such so no need to install a huge thing like some to make some money on the side after power generation taxes  :o ) to produce the electricity you need to run your everyday items in a smaller 750-800sq ft home does that count as being "Green" enough.  :-/

Dimitri

John Raabe

#16
It's true - the most effective green building was what was done naturally by most everyone 100 years ago. This was long before building green was hip.

Kind of like the food supply -- 60 or 70 years ago the only food available was grown organically without chemical fertilizers and insecticides and was not highly processed or put in non-biodegradable packaging.

These old fools didn't know how cool they were...
None of us are as smart as all of us.

jwv

QuoteIt takes courage to stand up and work outside the whole "[highlight]mortgage/code/building industry/real estate complex[/highlight]".

While I can give you a big AMEN! on this point, this complex is not going away.  :-[  I feel that working within the current system and pushing the boundaries will bring changes just as those who are able to build outside of code areas come up with innovations that others can use.

We made many difficult decisions in building our home within the sustainability issue. On-grid/off-grid, what kind of wood, cement stucco/earthen plaster, recycled cabinets/new cabinets, after a while you can go crazy and have to just do your best within your means and hope to live your life day to day in a responsible way.

Judy
http://strawbaleredux.blogspot.com/

"One must have chaos in one's self to give birth to the dancing star" ~Neitszche

Amanda_931

Don't get too sentimental about the good old days when everything was truly all-natural.

IIRC Dan Beard recommended white lead for painting on roofs, for instance.

MountainDon

Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.


Amanda_931

Just got in a copy of Mark Lynas Six Degrees.  What has happened, and probably will again, as the planet warms up an average of six degrees (C).  He reminds us that six degrees colder and parts of Britain were under a huge glacier, and he could have walked across the Baltic sea.  

Not pleasant reading.   Accompanied by quotations from Dante's Inferno.

And, by the way, apparently electric lights (maybe not even depending on the origin of the electricity) save more carbon (dioxide production) than candles--and presumably kerosene lanterns.