4/27/2024 0 Comments The house designers![]() ![]() Whenever possible, use the low-tech solution.ĭeciduous trees for shading, ceiling fans for cooling, clothing lines instead of dryers (at least in the summer). Also, use materials that can be recycled at the end of their life. Consider future use.ĭesign the floor plan & structure so it’s (relatively) easy for the future owners of your building to remodel. They’re not as expensive as you may think. Pro tip: If you’re remodeling an existing home, an energy audit is a good place to start. Here’s a quick guide to help you figure it out. So if remodeling an existing home is going to be cost prohibitive, a new home may be the better way to go. BUT! You’re still trying to find the balance between expenditures and gains. If you can reuse some of that energy, you already have a leg up. Remodel existing homes rather than building new.Įxisting homes required a huge amount of energy to be built in the first place. I did LOTS of research ( and coloring in!), and here, for your reading pleasure, are the boiled down principles of a Pretty Good House*: Big Picture 1. You can do some of the things or (preferably) all of the things. A set of principles that direct the design of your building. Rather, it’s a way of thinking about your home. (Except for an awesome engineer who sells her graphic handbook for 99 cents. No one is directly making money with the PGH. PGH is not regulated by any board or council. The key word there is “reasonable.” In Michael Maine’s words, a Pretty Good House finds the “sweet spot between expenditures and gains.” With decades of experience in the sustainable building industry, they came up with a set of reasonable expectations for a Pretty Good House. Pretty Good House was borne out of a collaboration between some of the best builders, architects, engineers, designers, and specifiers in the business. Then, earlier this year, I attended a Building Science Discussion Group in Portland, Maine and BAM! I heard about the Pretty Good House and it felt like the answers to all my hopes and dreams! I was (and still am) EXCITED. The Pretty Good House is a high performance house emphasizing low energy consumption, reduced carbon emissions, and incredible occupant comfort and health. And thankfully, some really smart people put it all together and gave it an awesome name… the PRETTY GOOD HOUSE. You may be thinking… “It costs a fortune to build a sustainable house! I can’t afford that!” Fear not, there are relatively affordable solutions to this problem. When all is said and done, sustainable homes are MORE COMFORTABLE and significantly HEALTHIER for their occupants. If you don’t pay attention to reducing your carbon footprint, your building will continue to be part of the problem for as long as it stands.īut these are just numbers. ![]() Sure, it may be pretty, but if it’s not sustainably built, you’re contributing negatively to that 40%. When you commission a building and ask that it “just meet code” you are asking for the worst building you can legally build. Did you know that buildings generate about 40% of annual global green house gas emissions?(1) FORTY PERCENT. ![]()
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