Green Building Curmudgeon

I attended the Remodeling Show in Baltimore recently, and although I did not spend as much time perusing the exhibits on the show floor as they deserved, while roaming the floor with my fellow green policeman Michael Anschel, I ran across some cool new products, some blatant examples of greenwashing, and a few things that looked interesting but that I have not yet come to conclusions on. There were some excellent educational sessions, good times with old and new friends, and even an Orioles game thrown in for good measure.

Really green or just greenwashing?

In a post from last summer on LEED for Homes, I mused on the ineffectiveness and confusion surrounding the required Durability Planning process, the preparation of a project-specific Durability Checklist, and third-party inspection of this work. The general consensus among green raters I know is that the entire Durability Planning process in LEED for Homes is confusing, arbitrary, and extremely difficult for most construction teams to get their heads around.

In case you haven’t read my earlier posts about my aborted attempt to build myself a house, Green From the Start Home Edition, Green From the Start Home Edition, Volume 2, and the dismal ending to the first half my saga, What We Have Here Is a F

Much of the GBA team was in attendance at the 14th-annual Westford Building Science Symposium last week. More commonly known (and maybe more accurately described) as “Summer Camp,” this invitation-only, three-plus days long assembly of several hundred people involved in building science is a geek's delight, featuring long days of lectures followed by dinner, drinks, and music until the wee hours. How we manage to get up and function each morning is one of the biggest mysteries at camp. If any Twitter fans are interested, look for #bscamp in tweets from this week to learn more.

I had an interesting meeting recently with a group of gentlemen who plan to distribute lambs’ wool insulation imported from New Zealand. Their company, Lambsulation, is gearing up to distribute throughout the US. They contacted me to get my impressions of their product and how they might effectively market it to the green building community. I know that wool is a good insulator. As a kid at sleep-away camp, I clearly remember having to wear wool sweaters that made my skin itch when camping, so we would stay warm in case we got wet.

Sarah Susanka, in a talk at a recent meeting of the Green Building Council of the Greater Atlanta Homebuilders Association, was her usual, charming self. Sharing ideas from several of her nine best-selling books about right-sized, well-designed homes, she moved deftly from architectural details to new urbanism. One of her more interesting points was the value of following your personal passions.

Much of my work these days is certifying homes under LEED, EarthCraft, Energy Star, and the National Green Building Program (NGBP). My day-to-day work includes energy modeling and site inspections, but I find that I spend most of my time explaining and interpreting the different programs to builders, telling them what to do to achieve certification. Each program has minimum requirements, all slightly different. These requirements are not always straightforward or intuitive, and most builders struggle to do them right.

The disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has generated endless news stories and opinion pieces on the state of our energy industry and how to “fix” it. Most of the conversations address two key points: independence from foreign oil and alternative energy. Strategies on the first point tend to be limited to expanding domestic drilling capacity. Regarding alternatives, suggestions range from wind and solar to nuclear, biomass, and clean coal. What I find most troubling is that there is so little discussion of conservation.

I had the pleasure of attending the 18th Congress for the New Urbanism in Atlanta this year. I have been following the development of the New Urbanism movement since its early days, having been introduced to it by my friend Peter Katz, who wrote one of the first books on the subject, The New Urbanism, almost 20 years ago.

After a daylong home tour, the NAHBNational Association of Home Builders, which awards a Model Green Home Certification. National Green Building Conference got rolling in earnest on Monday, May 17, in Raleigh, N.C. While slightly smaller than a few years ago, the conference had a respectable turnout and some good educational sessions for attendees. Kept to a concise day and a half with five sessions running concurrently, it was easy to miss some good talks—unless, of course, not only could you split your personality, but also your body.