That is the question, whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the loss of money in the name of enhancing the new green economy or to use that money for further project improvements. A few green certification programs have popped up, the most widely known of which is the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program from the U.S. Green Building Council.
A good example of strange certification issues came up a few weeks ago. We were looking at windows and doors. We have narrowed our choice to two different manufacturers. Both are selling high level green products, including the use of recycled materials, thermal breaks, long lasting finishes, low emissivity coatings, argon gas between double panes of glass, etc. But if we want to become LEED certified (a question very often asked of us), then we have to buy the same window, but at a higher cost to cover the expense of tracking it through the system.
Or how about this example for ramping up the frustration level: We have frequently engaged the Amish community to custom build high quality kitchen cabinets for us. Our intention is to do so with this house as well. They are a local business and are arguably a very green industry (they don't even use electric lights, working only during daylight hours). I investigated the wood they use and discovered that the mill supplying them is also considered local. Plus that mill produces wood that is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. There's not much else you can do to be green on kitchen cabinets, so we were pretty stoked. Then we found out that because the Amish woodshop itself isn't certified, the "chain of custody" is broken and we would not earn certification points for using their cabinets.
Many such issues have come up and it's exhausting to work through all of them. The rating systems don't seem to have been fully developed for single family home projects. Plus it's very expensive to get certified. Expensive in that you could buy a nice used car for what it would cost to certify.
The final nail in the coffin came a couple of days ago when we discovered that with the rating system we were intending to use we would receive an overall rating equal to the rating of the lowest category. So even though we are producing all of our own power, have high insulation and geothermal heating/cooling, we wouldn't achieve the highest rating simply because we didn't have a rain barrel. Or because we hadn't protected sensitive habitat. What about the fact that there wasn't ANY sensitive habitat? An empty city lot with weeds and bush honeysuckle is not sensitive habitat.
We understand that with certification systems in good working order you can develop standardized measures of a home's quality. This helps consumers compare builders and gives you confidence that you are really building a green home. We eventually realized that we already have that confidence in our builder and the rating system guidelines are available on the web. We actually went through a whole scoring tool and rated the project ourselves. By doing this we could easily see where we needed improvement and can discuss that with our trusted builder.
It began to seem like we were only rating the project so we could show off a fancy certificate. Our egos aren't worth spending several thousand dollars. So we have concluded that we will do what is called a HERS rating (Home Energy Rating). This is the basis of all the certification systems and is a measure of a home's energy efficiency as compared to a standardized home. It is easily done and costs just a few hundred dollars. Ultimately, our energy bills will also serve as a certification that we did a good job. For other green concerns, such as landscaping, we have many resources available in St. Louis to help us do the green thing.
Sorry there aren't any pictures, see the next posting.
Onward and upward,
Mark, Mark and Isabel
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