Greenbuilding Archive for September 2001

The home has very little historic value, but I'm not convinced the answer
was to tear it down.   The greenest materials might be the ones you don't
use at all!  Very few new studs/joists/rafters in the existing structure.
About 90% of the existing plasterboard and plaster left in place.  But using
the existing structure, I saved most of the materials (and embodied energy)
that would have been required in new construction.  I consider this a green
solution.

Part of the problem is that our society doesn't seem to value labor--and
this was a labor intensive process--as much as we values tangible things.
The thinking apparently goes, if we pay $10,000 for a stack of lumber, well
we have something to show for it.  If we pay $10,000 for labor...what do we
have?  So we spend a lot for stuff, including a new house, but not as much
for the labor it would take to make something of equal or better value.
Solve that problem, and you'll solve a lot of other problems as well.

Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: <deumling@socrates.Berkeley.EDU>
To: Ted Shelton <ted655@hotmail.com>
Cc: <sbtdesigns@earthlink.net>; <greenbuilding@crest.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: [GBlist] Old houses


> You should read a book called "New Energy from Old Buildings" from
> 1981, Ted.  It is a collection of essays about
> (1) the vast quantities of energy embodied in the construction materials
> of these old buildings, and
> (2) ways to add small amounts of materials or modifications to improve on
> what in many climates were already better adapted and more energy
> efficient buildings to begin with.
>
> In hot climates, for instance, these buildings which we have come to think
> of as inefficient and best scrapped in fact involved a myriad of features
> which made them comfortable (and in today's terms-energy efficient)
> without such things as air conditioning and central heat.  The book makes
> no claim that all old buildings are perfect or necessarily superior to
> modern ones, but many arguably were.
>
> It is most interesting to realize how firmly we have come to believe that
> how we build today is better than how we built yesterday, which is thought
> to be better than we built in the 1920s...  I would posit that the truth
> lies somewhere else entirely.
>
> I know someone who lives in Oakland, California who lives in a Victorian
> home such as several folks have described, and he managed to reduce the
> energy consumption (his monthly bills) by 90 per cent within less than
> half a year.  While the climate in the Bay Area is forgiving, reducing the
> monthly bill from 800 kWh to 80 kWh is nothing to sniff at either.  His
> total investment was, as I recall, around $5,000.
>
> Reuben Deumling
>
> On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Ted Shelton wrote:
>
> > =======...particularly sad and tragic when that home is a hundred
> > year old two or three story Victorian style ====================
> >        Seems cruel, until you take into account 100yr old insulation,
> > plumbing, wiring, and design. It is sad, but we don't live like we used
to
> > 100yrs. ago. Unless it has some valid historic value, get the junk off
and
> > put up an attractive earth friendly, energy efficient home.
> >
> > ted655@hotmail.com
> >
> >
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> ______________________________________________________________________
> This greenbuilding dialogue is sponsored by REPP/CREST, creator of
> Solstice http://www.crest.org, and BuildingGreen, Inc., publisher of
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> ______________________________________________________________________
>


______________________________________________________________________
This greenbuilding dialogue is sponsored by REPP/CREST, creator of
Solstice http://www.crest.org, and BuildingGreen, Inc., publisher of
Environmental Building News and GreenSpec http://www.BuildingGreen.com
______________________________________________________________________