Pin Foundations: A Very Green Foundation System

Here is a very  inexpensive and non-invasive foundation system that is slowly gaining popularity.  What is holding it back is typically conservative builders and structural engineers.

http://www.pinfoundations.com/green.htm

If your jurisdiction requires a soil report, then you may be able to find a geotechnical engineer who can work with the engineers at Pin Foundations and get the structural plans stamped.

The floor insulation and moisture vapor control details are important:  http://www.pinfoundations.com/docs/DP%20SKIRT%20WALL%20PRL%20TO%20JOISTS.pdf

In most cases, this system means:
1.  No excavation contractor
2.  No poured footings
3.  No concrete forming or stemwalls
4.  No concrete delivery trucks using diesel and disposing of waste concrete

Since the system eliminates conventional concrete work, many would consider it very green.  Concrete work is still tolerated by most green builders due to its durability and longevity, but the concrete industry is apparently one of the top contributors to global warming.

LED Bulbs Are Now as Efficient as Fluorescent Tubes

They are affordable too.   This bulb currently cranks out 80 lumens per watt for under $11:
http://www.amazon.com/G7-Power-G7A19W10-Omni-Directional-Dimmable/dp/B00AN1OQMO/ref=pd_cp_hi_3

But next year there will be better ones.

Saving Water and Floorspace

Maybe you've seen those toilets that save water by incorporating the handwashing sink into the lid of the toilet

There is also a way to retrofit a sink to the top of most side flush toilets for $140:

I like this idea, because I think you could save room in a house by putting the toilet and a shower in a smaller than normal bathroom, and have the main bath sink hovering in the bedroom as IKEA suggested in last year's catalog.   This reduces collisions between the two people sharing a three piece bath.  Saving water by reusing it is good too.

Also, some may criticize this toilet-top-hand-washing idea because there is no hot water available.  Well, most people don't wait for hot water at a conventional bath sink anyway.

Car2Go is Free Until August 4th

Now You Can Go Carless Painlessly - -

You've probably already seen the blue and white Smart Cars sitting all over town with keys in the ignition. Once you've signed up, you can take any of them for a few minutes or across town and then leave it anywhere in Denver. No reservation needed.  Your smart phone instantly shows you where the closest one is.

For longer trips, sign up for E-Go CarShare, but you have to return it to their special spot.

This means that you can design your garage to store your stuff, and you don't need to pretend that your car will use it.

Finally an Unvented Washer/Dryer that Works Pretty Good

The status quo method of drying clothes inside a house is a lousy method.  If you use an electric dryer, you are buying expensive heat to raise the temperature of the dryer airstream, and then you blow that air directly outside.  Whenever you blow air out of the house, it must be replaced with unconditioned air from outside.  So using your dryer causes you buy about twice as much heat as the dryer actually uses.  The hole in the side of your house for the dryer vent also tends to make the house leak more air than if you didn't have that hole.

"Heat pump dryers" are the most efficient way to dry clothes, but we can't buy 'em in the US yet.

"Condensing dryers" are currently the best alternative we have.  They dry the air by condensing the water vapor out of the air rather than blowing it outside.

LG and others make "combo" units that combine a washer and condensing dryer into the same appliance.  Not only does that save a lot of expensive real estate inside your house, the user doesn't have to transfer the clothes from the washer to the dryer.  Put your clothes in at night, wake up to clean and dry clothes. Cool.

I've been following the development of these appliances for 10 years, and found that they were unacceptable because they never got the clothes dry enough.

LG has a new model that seems to work.  The online reviews are by far the best I've seen for any washer/dryer.

So your new house can be designed without a dryer vent, which is a win-win.

Vacuum Insulation for Walls now Available

Dow has developed a very interesting product that achieves R39 per inch, which leapfrogs even aerogel in insulating performance:
http://www.dowcorning.com/content/publishedlit/62-1556-01.pdf

It is also close to the theoretical limit for insulation space efficiency.  In a superinsulated home, this insulation can add 10% to the usable size of the home for a typical exterior footprint (because the walls can be thinner).  In a typical situation, that's a $15/sq.ft. savings.  Currently, I'm sure that this stuff will cost much more than $15 per finished square foot of home, however, so we have to wait until production costs come down.

The production costs can theoretically be very low, since it is apparently just a high tech bag of sand.  Vacuums contain nothing, so they can be made very cheaply with the right production equipment.

Drawbacks are that you can't cut or drive a screw through it since both operations cause loss of vacuum.  Hopefully, Dow engineers are working hard on those major issues.

Idea- The panel production could be on-site with a machine capable of producing custom sizes.

Chimneys Are A No-No

Wood burning masonry fireplaces, while they used to be desirable in homes as recently as the 20th century, are an energy efficiency disaster.  (Direct vent woodstoves are usually OK)

Gas fireplaces can be less of a problem, but they are usually vented with a metal pipe of some sort.

Therefore, every new chimney you've seen in the past 20 years is a FAKE chimney, stuck on by an architect or home designer who thinks it's necessary to "make a house look like a home" or whatever.

Stay away from fake and real chimneys because they hurt the integrity of your insulation and air sealing layers, and compromise the durability of your roof.  In my ownership and maintenance of 200 or so homes in the Denver area, chimneys are the most common location for roof leaks.