I've been thinking about building a new home and wanted to go green as much as I could afford. Finding the right resources have been the biggest challenge. In everything I've researched I still feel in a way that I don't know anything. I obviously want solar but again I don't know where to start. How many panels do I need? Should I build the pitch of my roof a certain angle? Will the panels track the sun? How does the system tie into my electrical outlets? Could I get a little wind system that would help compensate for low sun? Should I do SIPS, or concrete panels? What about heating/cooling? Whole house fans? What about my roof and siding/cladding, grey systems? As you can see I'm very overwhelmed with all this green stuff. Does anyone have any good resources? I live in southeast VA and I'm confused as hell. I'm trying to formulate my design and get a plan going. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Jay

I'm with you on this one, the more I read the more I realize I don't know. I've spent weeks on this forum and it's probably been the most help I could ever ask for. I found a book that touches on a lot of subjects and kind of opened my eyes to a lot of things I never heard of, I don't know what the pro's here think of it but it helped me. "Green From The Ground Up", by Johnston & Gibson. It has a permanent spot next to my computer. Good Luck, Sean

The first and best 'green' thing you can do when building is use the best 'bones' possible when building.
By bones I mean the parts of the house that are never talked about or thought about after the construction is complete. The parts of the house that affect the actual life expectancy of the house should be the first priiority. If we assume the lifetime of a house to 100+ years, most of the green items being discussed will only last a fraction of that lifetime. But building good bones into the house will actually increase the productive lifetime of the house.
Start with a sensible plan, add a good foundation, solid framing, outstanding insulation, and a strong, long lasting roof system, and you have the first step in a green home.
ICFs and/or SIPS construction, high quality, energy efficient windows, and a metal roof to top if off, and you have a 'green' home for the ages. Anything else you care to add will be the 'gravy' so to speak.

Design should be an iterative process- assume that it's a system that has to work together for optimal form function & cost. Passivhaus/PassiveHouse and other superinsulated approaches get a lot of mileage out of reducing the heating/cooling loads so dramatically that the size & cost of the systems required to heat/cool/ventilate it drop by 90% or more, which pays for a lot of the envelope upgrading like super-windows and wall/floor insulation. (If you have any Net Zero Energy dreams, the size of the solar-thermal & PV arrays to support the loads of a Passivhouse are quite small- even affordable.) They have some fairly evolved modeling software they use to design it too:

http://www.passivehouse.us/passiveHouse/PHIUSHome.html

But they're not the only game in town- just better organized than most. Where they might be llacking might be in cooling strategies for high-humidity zones, since most of their experience is in fairly dry Europe. IIRC They're big on the sustainability of the materials used too.

Building Science Corp has a lot of data & recommendations about heat & humidity transfers within structural materials, including high-R structures. They have done a lot of real research about building envelopes, debunking a lot of building-code legacy about passively vented attics & crawlspaces, etc. This is definitely worth a read when developing a highly insulated house design:

http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/reports/RR-0903_High-R_Value_Walls.pdf/view

http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/reports/RR-0903_High-R_Value_Walls.pdf

From the 1000' up view, general things like keeping the roof lines simple and the exterior surface area to floor space area low make it more likely to achieve a low-energy result. It's hard to fully air-seal and perfectly insulate a roof full of dormers & valleys. And those 20' ceilings in the Great Room may have visual appeal, but it doubles the heat loss of the exterior walls while stratifying the room air (maybe OK in summer, but sucks in winter). Any design should carefully analyze & control both winter & summer passive gains. (A lot of 1980 vintage passive solar homes ROASTED the occupants in the summers. NO TILTED GLASS ALLOWED! 'Ceptin' maybe a few small aerogel panels for daylighting... )

If you're planning on panelized rooftop solar (and it sounds as if you are), the exact roof angle isn't quite as critical as many had previously thought- it's a fairly wide target. But you should still absorb & understand this, and apply it to your location as part of your site & design process:

http://www.hawaiirdp.org/hetl/AdvisoryGroup/tilt-az-paper-3z13.pdf

Building good bones for energy efficiency is a new concept that I will illustrate now. You first start with the footings and foundation walls and they should be INSULATED and remember KISS, keep it simple silly. This step alone will save you much money in the long term. ref: http://strataus.com/

I was and still am to a certain degree in the same boat with you. The very best thing i did to bring all the info out there into some sort of digestible order was to take a one day LEED class for builders/tradesmen. $275 but i am sure it was the best use of the money. It really changed my focus from solar P/vV and hi tech stuff to what the previous posters mention. Design as dana said is key. Durability, sustainability and efficiency. I met a ton of contractors who were focused on green building in my area. Keep chuggin, michael

Thanks for all the feedback. So the structure is the key. I've been to the LEED website a few times and seem to get lost in circles. I can't seem to find any real hard info on the site. I will check their site again and perhaps take the course. This stuff is very interesting to me. I'm gonna check out the info you guys provided. Thanks again.

I had the opposite experience at a USGBC workshop in Princeton. The presenter and the audience had a commercial and govt real estate focus. I think I was the only owner/builder in the room. A LEED rating costs about $3k apparently, not counting the design professionals you'd need. I left with the same question I brought into the room. Why?

surfh2o, I would start with one of the 100 level courses that you can take online. It was a strongly recomended pre rec for the 300 level day long course i took. The great thing is there were two instructors and only about thirty students. Questions were answered at any time and during every break we were encouraged to speak to the instructors one on one. I spent $275 for the class but decided not to pursue a LEED rated house mostly because i was allready to far along in the design and site prep. They offer Lots of difrent classes and workshops. I took the LEED for homes 300 level for home builders and contractors.

I will start by saying that I am a LEED supporter because it covers all aspects of sustainability and that documentation is needed to prove it.  My company has taken on the policy that ALL our projects will be LEED certified (or equivalent for those outside the USA).  The costs and fees are typically no problem for our large scale projects because they are a tiny % of the budget and the benefits of a LEED certificate far outweigh the certification costs.  It does require time and effort.....again, we think it is worth it.  On small projects the expense is more significant and I do know that LEED is trying to make the process a bit more friendly.

However, when I build my house in a few years, I don't think I will go for a LEED certificate unless my builder and architect  (all TBD) are experienced with the LEED process and/or there is a significant financial benefit.  I think the process will be stressful enough without another layer of complexity. 

I think things like blower door tests and actual utility bills speak as loudly as LEED certificates at the individual home level, especially if you have good photo documentation of the building process.

Understanding LEED and the things it considers will help anyone build a better house, but I am not sure that actual certification is that important.

Bruce

YES!

That's a primary issue with LEED- it's prescriptive with lots of line-items & documentation requirements, but is not measured by the actual result (which can be and often IS less energy efficient than some baseline model.)  In the end, it's the PERFORMANCE that counts, if the building is intended to last more than a few decades.

A building using sustainable methods & materials that fails to meet the implied efficiency is kind of a waste, and misses much of the point.

Another newbie perspective: we were also in the same situation and after two months we are finally ready to sign the contract with the builder. I took the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative's "Green Built Home" checklist (http://wi-ei.org/uploads/media/GBH_CHKLST_08.pdf) and started asking questions of our builder and researching the things that we didn't understand. At one meeting, the builder says -- "6 inch Energy Heel, sure, we can do that, good idea... no cost."

We'll now be around 180 of the required 60 points from that checklist, with many features that we had never heard of two months ago. We're coming to find that boring things like insulation, air sealing, and window upgrades make a big difference. We do want to do solar eventually, but have come to believe that the less sexy features are a better use of our budget at this time.

Could you pre-wire for solar?

Surf, If you go to the solar section on this site there is a thread about pre-wireing solar. Its back a couple months. You can always add solar, seems a good idea to wait since PV just gets better and cheaper. I would consider how to mount the panels during your design and build phase. Solar hot water is afordable today with a much quicker return on investment. And as the previous poster said alot of this stuff doesnt cost any extra such as raised heal trusses.

I agree with everything said except that LEED certification may not be that important.

If you new home is LEED certified than there can be little to no doubt in the mind of someone purchasing that property that the home was built correctly. It should also increase the value of that home vs someone just taking your word that the home was build Green. There is a lot, as you know, that can't be seen after a home is finished. In a lot of new homes "Beauty is only skin deep"

We are building a new Leed certified home and not only is it helpful in the design, but is is a good insurance to getting things done right. Sub-contractors are more likely to put there best foot forwand knowing LEED is overseeing the project.

If I were you, I'd "Bite the Bullet" and go with LEED certification.

I agree with everything said except that LEED certification may not be that important.

If you new home is LEED certified than there can be little to no doubt in the mind of someone purchasing that property that the home was built correctly. It should also increase the value of that home vs someone just taking your word that the home was build Green. There is a lot, as you know, that can't be seen after a home is finished. In a lot of new homes "Beauty is only skin deep"

We are building a new Leed certified home and not only is it helpful in the design, but is is a good insurance to getting things done right. Sub-contractors are more likely to put there best foot forwand knowing LEED is overseeing the project.

If I were you, I'd "Bite the Bullet" and go with LEED certification.

I would question the need of LEED certification. If you plan on living in this house for quite a long time, probably not needed. If you are trying to flip the house in a few years, it might be worth it. Either way, it is only worth it if the eventual buyers think it's important and are willing to pay more for it.

Posted By taco_mel on 09 Jul 2009 10:33 PM
Another newbie perspective: we were also in the same situation and after two months we are finally ready to sign the contract with the builder. I took the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative's "Green Built Home" checklist (http://wi-ei.org/uploads/media/GBH_CHKLST_08.pdf) and started asking questions of our builder and researching the things that we didn't understand. At one meeting, the builder says -- "6 inch Energy Heel, sure, we can do that, good idea... no cost."

We'll now be around 180 of the required 60 points from that checklist, with many features that we had never heard of two months ago. We're coming to find that boring things like insulation, air sealing, and window upgrades make a big difference. We do want to do solar eventually, but have come to believe that the less sexy features are a better use of our budget at this time.

I think that as a "newbie", your post is very insightful.   I probably qualify as the "newb" also & have come to a lot of the same realizations as you.  We have a good builder, but energy efficiency has not been his main focus.  As we've worked together he's said this has been a learning experience for him as well, and it will affect how he builds houses going forward.  As an example, we're using 1" foam board on the non-structural/wind-bracing areas in lieu of osb.  It gives us an extra R6 and a thermal break, and is costing about $200 more - total - than it would have to just use OSB.

Back to the original poster, probably the most relevant thing I've learned through this process is that you can pretty much classify all of these "green"/energy efficient processes into 2 categories  - what I call "active" and "passive".  "Passive" being things like insulation & passive solar - you're not creating or generating energy, but you're conserving it.  I would call photovoltaic & geothermal "active' systems.  Generally speaking, the passive/conserving route will give you better return on investment.  It's been mentioned already, but things like insulating your foundation, paying close attention to air-sealing walls & ceilings, etc. are going to allow you to use smaller sized heating systems & save money month over month.