Posts Tagged ‘Green Building’

Things to-do Before You Start Green Remodeling

1. Be informed: Green remodeling is a wonderful idea, but you should not jump into it without first understanding what it is and what it requires. You need to understand how un-green your house is now, what you can change, what you cannot and what are your options. Start by researching websites like http://www.epa.gov; http://www.energy.gov; http://www.energystar.gov; http://www.usgbc.com and other websites that will provide with resources on green building.
2. Do some home-work: You cannot start remodeling without first figuring out what is wrong with your house the way it is. Of course, a good remodeling contractor will help you with this, but it is good if you have some idea of your own. Start by finding out how un-green your house is currently. Carry out an energy-audit to find out how much energy your house consumes currently; calculate how much water you waste everyday and also what kind of harmful materials your house is using currently. The EPA website is a one stop shop for all info needs. Once you have some idea of how much your house accounts for environmental degradation, you can now have an intelligent discussion with your contractor.
3. Don’t forget the finances: Remodeling, green or not requires a decent sum of money. However, when it comes green remodeling, most authorities loosen their purse strings quite a bit. Most cities and counties in the US provide many incentives to homeowners for going green, in terms of tax benefits. Check with your county clerk or city civic authorities. Private organizations also offer loans to homeowners for green remodeling – for example – GE. Most importantly, you need to determine the current value of your home, and what the value of your home might be after it is green built. If the equation doesn’t sound appealing, you might want to think it over.

Remodeling – An Introduction

When it comes to going green, remodeling your home is your best bet. Remodeling is a little more intensive that renovating, which just means changing the look of the house; and a little less intensive than rebuilding, which changes the house altogether. Remodeling essentially changes the way the house works. This could also include changing the way the house looks or at times even changing the build of the house. Largely, however, the focus is on changing (for the better) the functioning of the house. And because the house is changing for the better, green is the only way to go!

Remodeling has efficiency and efficacy as its goal. Thus, the purpose of remodeling could be better utilization of space, better lighting, lowering consumption of electricity or better insulation. While trying to achieve these, remodeling pays careful attention to the prevalent weather conditions, the needs and comfort of the homeowners and the current plan of the house. A full fledged remodeling will change the heating and cooling system, the lighting and electric system, insulation, the plumbing system and if required, will also change the current plan of the house.

Green remodeling incorporates green building practices while introducing all these changes and is one of the best ways to ensure the home is entirely green. For green remodeling make sure your designer/builder is well-versed with green building techniques, preferably someone who has hands on experience with green building.

Using solar energy in any form in your house contributes in many ways to preserving and bettering the environment, and also the quality of indoor air and the home itself. With the way the environment is going down and fossil fuel prices are going up, energy efficient homes are the only kind of homes that can sustain in the 21st century and beyond.
Therefore, be it solar water heaters, lamps or an entire solar electric system – solar energy is an important step and consideration in making your home energy efficient.

Often though, creating a completely energy efficient requires extensive remodeling, in order to take care of heating, cooling, lighting, plumbing, insulation, electrical appliances and other things. This may not be feasible for everyone, and sure enough, isn’t, for many of our customers. Therefore we generally suggest homeowners who want to shift to an energy efficient to start by just adding solar panels, and a simple solar electric system. This takes a lot of burden off the environment and also your own budget in a threefold manner:

1. You are no longer using electricity produced fossil fuels to power your home (which is not very energy efficient either)
2. Although your home is still inefficient when it comes to energy, at least you’re using clean, renewable and home-made energy to power it.
3. You’re taking some measures to introduce energy efficiency without burning a hole in your pocket.

There are many factors that you should consider while buying a solar electric system or a Photovoltaic (PV) system, apart from its cost.

1. Electricity consumption: The US Dept. of Energy provides a simple formula to do this: Wattage per appliance X Number of hours it is used everyday. This will give you your electricity consumption in watts (usually kilowatts). The size of your solar electric system (the number of PV/solar panels) will depend on this consumption. It will also help you figure out if a solar electric system alone will fulfill all your electricity requirements.

2. Type of system: Contrary to popular opinion, system types do not depend on how much electricity they produce, but rather on how they supply this to your house. There are 3 options available –

a. A Grid Inter-tied System, when you want to remain connected to the grid, while offsetting your grid consumption by supplying it with electricity you produce;

b. A Grid Inter-tied System with Battery Backup to keep your house (or part of it) running even when the utility grid fails – a good option if you experience frequent outages.

c. An off-grid/independent System which is not connected to any grid and supplies electricity only to your home. This system requires making some adjustments, like learning to live with the energy you have.

Every system might not work or work differently in every state, depending on state laws.

3. Cost: It is difficult to have a standard cost for solar electric system, however, we can say that the price is generally up of $10,000 and the larger a system, the lesser the cost. Cost depends on the kind of system, kind of solar cells used in the system, your electricity requirements, amount of sunlight you receive, weather, etc. The best way is to find out your exact requirements and to invite bids from suppliers.

4. Suppliers: Finally, it all comes down to getting a good supplier. A ‘good’ supplier or installer is one who:

a. Is experienced in installing the type of system that YOU need

b. Is licensed to install solar systems

c. Provides you with options and advice on how to make the process efficient and reduce costs

d. Provides warranties and customer support.

When it comes to green building, the first place we all go to is the sun. If you’re keen on building a green home, or are thinking of remodeling your home to make it eco friendly — shifting to solar energy for electricity needs is, today, the easiest and a high-impact way of going green. And we’d like to make it clear – it’s a misconception that solar or photovoltaic systems can work only in tropical areas with loads of sunlight. Switzerland, a country with temperate climate and lots of cloud cover (and let’s not forget all the snow) has the first and largest number of closed structures built by the passivhaus (Passive House) model, which uses only solar energy to fulfill the cooling, heating and lighting requirements of a home. And it may surprise you to know, solar energy systems (incl. the passivhaus standard) are most popular among Scandinavian countries. So there’s little reason why they should not work in our own Olympia.

A few other reasons why you should seriously consider shifting to solar energy:

1. Of all the renewable sources, solar energy is the easiest to generate on an individual or household level. While on a large scale commercial level, wind power or hydropower are cheaper sources than solar energy, Olympia does not have the average wind speeds needed to make wind power feasible, and hydropower would be too cumbersome.

2. Technological advancements and innovation are making solar panels more efficient, cheaper and feasible for use. Already, third generation solar cells (low price and high efficiency) are in the market and as market competition increases, manufacturers are trying hard to reduce prices. China plans to create solar power grids that will be able to supply power at just 10 cents per kWh and First Solar, a primary solar systems manufacturer stated that its costs in 2009 had gone down to 93 cents per watt and benefits of this would go directly to consumers.