Today’s guest blogger is Woodrow Aames, a regular blog contributor over on ReliableRemodeler.com, who put out great articles about homeownership and particularly how to connect with the right contractor for your given project.  Luckily for us, some of their writers have contributed material to this blog before.

In this case, Woodrow talks about the business of finding a green remodeler, using a tool we all know and love; The INTERNET!

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Everyone will tell you, the best way to find a great remodeling contractor for your home renovation (green or otherwise) is word-of-mouth. Ask your friends, ask your friends’ friends, ask your friends’ Facebook friends. But all that asking can be tiring.

And if you’re reading this, chances are you like the Internet. Me too! Which is why I’m happy to report that looking up green home remodeling contractors online is pretty easy and reliable.

Here’s the deal. Go to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Green Home Guide. They list more than 150,000 green building contractors, including green remodeling contractors.  If 150,000 contractors you could hire sounds unbelievably overwhelming, don’t worry.

USGBC breaks it down for you, with categories for roofers, interior designers, electricians, and everything in between. They even recently added a category for green plumbers. And of course it’s all searchable by location. Just enter your city, state, or ZIP code.

In addition to helping you avoid the drawn-out conversations with acquaintances that are inevitable when you ask them about their home renovations (the intricacies of duct work problems are always more exciting when the duct work is yours), the Green Home Guide has the added benefits of only showing you remodeling contractors who are certified and accredited with Leadership and Environmental Design (LEED) professional credentials.

So instead of getting a recommendation from a friend that’s primarily based on the fact that the remodeling contractor is actually their second cousin, you can get an objective list of names based on objective qualifications.

Once you have a few names in hand, you can always ask around from there.

Good luck.

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You can read more from Woodrow, and from guest bloggers on the subjects of home improvement, remodeling and more, on Reliable Remodeler. You can follow him on Twitter @remodelers.

After all, we as a species went through a pretty big gardening phase.  Before industrialization, the food we ate was the food we directly helped to grow .  Gardening and a connection to the natural world was not just a hobby. It was vital to survival.

At this point in history, we’re thinking about gardening again in a new way, or perhaps a return to an old way.   It’s not as if gardening as a pastime has ever stopped. But, now the term green gardening is a topic of conversation.

But, what is it?  And what are some of the ways you can incorporate it into your life in the backyard, the balcony, or in the community at large?  Here are 10 tips from the experts as to how to go green in your garden, and reclaim that connection with the natural world that so many seek out when plunging their hands into the cool soil.

The philosophy and approach to green gardening is about letting one’s climate and eco-system lead the way when it comes to managing your garden.   This philosophy and approach determines how you choose plants, what the layout of your garden should be, how you manage pests, and any number of other factors involved in a successful garden.

And since there is so much information out there from the experts in the field, I’ve scoured the interwebs to find the best of it.  Here it is!

1. Mother (Nature) Knows Best
Here’s the hard facts, kids;  nature knows what it’s doing.  So, one thing to do is start researching to make sure we know what we’re doing in relation to nature.  Learn about your climate, and what conditions are most common. Read about how each species of plant and animal in your area interact, and interrelate in the survival stakes.  And plan your garden accordingly, integrated with that delicate eco-system.  Basically, this is an exercise in respecting one’s elders.  Generally speaking, this tip permeates and informs all of the other tips on this list. Thanks to PlanetGreen.com (@PlanetGreen on Twitter)

2. De-Toxify
Doing without chemical pesticides and fertilizers is  vital when green gardening.  With growing awareness of the alternatives that are biodegradable and non-toxic, and with a new way of approaching species that are known for being pests by noting how they may, in fact, actually be contributing to your garden, there is a wealth of resources out there to help you put your trust in Mother Nature.  Thanks to OrganicGardening.com

3. Trust the Locals
A basic question when starting a garden or revitalizing an existing one is that of what species is best to plant.  But, instead of traditional choices, when you’re looking to go green with your garden, it helps to take a look at the local flora which has thrived in your particular climate. There are some unsung winners out there that can give your garden the beauty you’re looking for, with the natural resistance and ability to flourish built right in.  Thanks to EcoSystemGardening.com (Eco System Facebook Page)

4. Welcome Bugs
There are a lot of reasons to avoid pesticides, particularly if you’re growing herbs that will eventually go in to making your dinner.  But, other advantages to avoiding the use of pesticides is that the species that will contribute most overtly to your garden.   Furthermore, in the light of the above point, it might be useful to research which plants in your area that are most bee and butterfly friendly, the ones are they most likely to find attractive.  These two species of insect are, of course, the pollinating heavyweights of the natural world.  If you’re going green, you want them on your side.  Thanks to DailyGreen.com (@The_Daily_Green on Twitter)

5. Water Is Gold
On a planet that is mostly covered in the stuff, it’s often difficult to remember that water is a precious commodity, despite its abundance.  It takes energy to pump it through pipes and out of our faucets, showers, and garden hoses. Minimizing water use is a key practice when you’re pursuing a green gardening course.  One way of doing this is by using the right kind of mulch, which retains moisture for a longer period than bare soil. You can also establish fencing and windbreaks that reduce the rate of evaporation due to wind and direct sunlight.  Thanks to the U.S Dept. of Agriculture (@USDAgov on Twitter) sponsored Natural Resources Conservation Service .

6. Buckets of rain …
“… Buckets of tears. Got all them buckets comin’ out of my ears”, as taken from Bob Dylan’s 1975 tune “Buckets of Rain”.  Anything to quote His Bobness.  And what I mean to imply with these lines is the old fashioned practice that has gained a new fangled prominence, and that is rain harvesting.    There are many ways of doing this which can involve some high-tech equipment. But , installing a rain barrel is a low-tech solution for collecting water for your garden.  This is a great way to cover the fifth point in this list, too – to treat water as the precious resource it is.  Thanks to GreenCulture.com (@GREENCulture on Twitter ).

7. Gardener’s Unite!
It may be that gardening to the scale you’d like isn’t possible.  Even though container gardening is a perfectly viable and fun project, if you’re looking to find a better use for organic wastage, and maybe in growing fruit and vegetables on a bigger scale than you can in your own space, it might be a good idea to find a community plot or local allotment program.    And you’re coming together with other like-minded neighbors too, who may have even more helpful tips on how to go green in your garden.  Thanks to the American Community Gardening Association .

8. DIY Compost
While it’s a good idea to reduce waste of any kind, including the amount of food wastage in the average home in the Western World, things like coffee grounds, fruit rinds, egg shells, and other food waste is like gold when it comes to creating natural fertilizer.  Instead of pitching it, why not give it back to the land, and enrich the soil of your garden instead of clogging up landfill sites?  And this way, you won’t be spending money on store bought fertilizers.  Yours will be DIY! For more tips on composting (including reducing odors!) check out Composting101.com

9. Grow Your Own
… Food, that is! Now, this kind of effort can take many forms depending on how much space you have.  But, even if you’re growing herbs and spices, or vine tomatoes on your balcony, you’re using available space to create a source for local food production.  This means inexpensive food grown without chemicals, and without a need to involve petroleum-reliant vehicles to get it to you.  Thanks to MotherEarthNews.com (@MotherEarthNews on Twitter).

10. RRR
And that’s not me growling seductively.  It’s the mantra of the green movement, the Three ‘R’s; reduce, re-use, recycle.  Apart from composting, which is referenced above, this has to do with choosing containers, trellises, fencing, and other accouterments of the gardening game which are derived from recycled materials, or from natural materials that are regulated and/or natrually renewable.  Thanks to GreenLivingTips.com (@GreenLivingTips on Twitter)

Cheers!

Rob.

Garden in a bowl image courtesy of Zedmelody.   Bee image courtesy of Jack Wolf. Community garden image by Klest.

The Olympics are  a series of events featuring the paragon of athleticism, goal-oriented in nature (‘gold-oriented” even), demonstrating excellence in its final and most fully formed manner.  After all, it takes years and years of training to get to Olympic levels of competence in any sport.  And we as spectators get to see that final result.

And the same is true, I believe, when it comes to reaching Olympic standards of sustainability, as it were.  As such, I don’t think we’ve arrived.  We have yet to see that final result. We’re still at the training stages.

A lot of good has come out of the Olympics coming to town in terms of green building and sustainability.  For one thing, we’ve got the Canada line, which now ferries millions of people from places like the Richmond Oval and Vancouver International Airport while also reducing car traffic and emissions in the downtown area.  We’ve re-used pine beetle damaged wood and constructed a sumptuous and highly functional speed skating rink.  We’ve gained LEED certificates on Olympic buildings, incorporating the latest in sustainable rain harvesting (a big deal around here), and other green technologies.

But, the “greeness” of the events is not without its critics.  This is evident in just walking around the city, seeing single-vehicle usage among VANOC volunteers around Olympic sites.  But, it also has been evident in larger controversies, including the large scale transportation of snow to Cypress Mountain (and the burning of fossil fuels included in that process), due to unseasonable warmth in the region at the time of the games. (note: at the time of this writing, it is currently grey and rainy – which is very seasonable for Vancouver …).  And of course, there’s the issue of greater emissions due to greater frequency of air travel for fans, and for athletes too.

The drive for tourism and commerce against the commitment to sustainability is a sore point when the issues of a green Olympic Games is raised.  Yet, I don’t necessarily think that this is the way it has to stay.  I just think we need to become better at striking the balance.  We need to train harder.  And this isn’t just on the shoulders of host cities, although a great deal of innovation in sustainable technologies certainly need to be maintained, invested in, and progressed by them.

I think, once again, getting closer to an Olympic standard of sustainability rests in a cultural mindset shift too.  That means the possibilities for a greener Olympic Games, or indeed any large scale event, will take a shift in expectations on everyone’s part.  It will mean expecting, demanding, investing in greater public transit use, alternative fuels, construction codes, innovative product packaging design, domestically produced merchandising, and a great many other aspects that contribute to an event of this scale.

And like the Olympics, we can’t get away with winging it on the day.  We’ve got to train for it, to reach the levels we want to reach as a culture when it comes to sustainable living and green building.

For more information about green Olympics, you can peruse the VANOC sustainability report.

Cheers!

Rob.

So to make up for it I’ve decided to find a few different ideas out there on the interwebs for you to consider for your New Year’s resolutions this year.  And here they are with a few days to spare before we enter a new year, and a new decade too (the Teens? Is that what we’re going to call them?).

Take a look at this list of 10 green living New Year’s resolutions from 10 New Year’s resolution lists I’ve found, and and decide for yourself

1. Own less stuff that you don’t need.  Buy less of the same.  (From the Centre For Sustainable Energy in California)
2. Carpool one day a week. (GCBA Australia)
3. Use canvas shopping bags and say no to plastic. (California Green Solutions)
4. Give your HVAC system a tune-up for energy efficiency on a yearly basis. (Green Talk)
5. Walk and bike to short distance destinations instead of driving. (Zero Footprint Carbon Countdown Blog)
6. Recycle at home, in your place of business, and get involved in recycling programs in your local community. (Low Impact Living)
7. Use motion sensors on outdoor lights, so that lights come on only when needed. (The Huffington Post).
8. Buy local food (The Independent) and/or grow your own (Mother City Living).
9. Eat less fast food, and reduce the amount  of Styrofoam and plastic packaging in landfill sites (Families Online Magazine).
10. Don’t lose hope that greener living, encouraging sustainability in your community, and voting for green reforms will affect positive and transformative change. (Greenpeace Canada)

I couldn’t choose just one off of this list of green living New Year’s resolutions from Inhabitat which asks each staff writer to talk about how they’re going to make their respective new year’s more green.  So, choose your favorite and tell me what made you choose it in the comments of this post.

Have a happy new year, everyone!

Cheers,

Rob.

You can get another first hand impression by reading this article on the Residential Systems Blog.

The points made about green in the video, and also some of the numbers that comes out of utilizing the technology are truly impressive.  But, in some ways it’s kind of intimidating too.  How does the average person, for instance, trick out their own pads with all of this technology?  It seems, in places,  like kind of an expensive thing to do.

Yet according to the article written by someone who visited the house, the residents Joe Hageman and Kimberly Lancaster Hageman are pretty restrained in terms of their tech set up (maybe barring the server room).  And sure the house employs some pretty major technology to help to keep it sustainable, like a geo-thermal HVAC system.  But, a lot of the places where they earned their points was in the simple solutions;  sourcing furniture which is made locally, choosing energy star appliances, fitting efficiently-insulated windows, and using green-friendly water-based paint.  These aren’t high-tech toys that are out of reach.

One of the goals of building green in this case was to inspire others to do the same.  And hopefully the simple approaches to the complex problem of energy savings and sustainable buildings will be the inspiration not only to individual families, but to developers and community planners looking to build on a large scale.  The goal here, as I’m sure the residents of this house would agree, is to make this level of low-impact living into the standard for everyone.

To learn more about this project, check out the Green Life Smart Life website.

Cheers,

Rob.

With this thought in mind, here’s a story about a town, Greensburg Kansas, home to 1400 residents  that was virtually destroyed by a tornado two years ago.  Faced with unimaginable hardship, the plight of the town mobilized citizens to action, calling them to pull together with a strategy on how to start again, while being within budget and being sensitive to the economic realities in front of them.

So, what did they do?  They decided to green build.

When you look at pictures of Greensburg after the tornado, the damage is overwhelming.  Yet as the article states, the goals and value systems of the town were unchanged.  They still needed to maintain shelter for their citizens,  support the recovery of local business, and also preserve the history and life of the town itself.  Green building was the answer for many.

On a residential level, one hundred  homes were re-built and designed to be 42% more energy efficient than local codes demand.  This of course not only spares the cost of resources to service residences, but the occupants share in that savings with a lower energy bill.  In the meantime, the entire downtown core was built up from where the old town once stood, with sustainability as a common starting point.

From the article:

Back in business are the town’s new sustainable GM dealership, three eco-friendly banks, and a handful of energy-efficient churches. A new ICF-constructed Dillons grocery is slated for LEED-Gold certification and features optimal daylighting, a superior building envelope, and motion-activated display case lighting.

Also on the agenda is a LEED-platinum hospital which features rain harvesting and solar energy technology.  A wind farm is being planned to close any energy shortfalls.  And a K-12 green built school to open next summer will incorporate similar technology that models the principles of green building for students in addition to providing an efficient, and more economically viable energy solution for the school itself.

Of the 1400 people who were forced to leave Greenburg in 2007, 900 have returned to re-build, encouraged by a new vision for their town, and of the new possibilities in their own futures.  It’s stories like this which really brings the issue of sustainability to life for me.  This is because it presents a firm truth that our environment and our quality of life are vitally intertwined.

Thanks to Greenshelter who referred me to the story.

Greensburg image courtesy of Wesley Fryer

Cheers,

Rob.

Even at that point, not too many consumers knew too much about things like LEED points, for instance, or even about post-industrial tile, or strand-woven bamboo floors.  I think that has changed.  And I hope we’ve been a voice in helping to bring that change about.

By now the average consumer is more educated than ever before.  And I think resource pages like this really help to round out the decision-making process when it comes to home renovations.  They also provide a basis for the decision-making process for those whom we call BIYers (buy-it-yourselfers).

These are folks who purchase green flooring and other building materials and then inform their hired contractors about their advantages.  The contractors then realize how durable and easy to work with a strand-woven bamboo floor is, for instance.  And then that wisdom is passed along from consumer to professional, and perhaps then to another consumer.

It seems that making buying decisions centered around ethics as well as practicality and look is becoming more and more the norm in any case, which to me is a credit to the awareness of buyers where issues of sustainability are concerned.  It’s kind of  a chicken and egg scenario in many ways, I suppose, what with a multitude of DIY TV programs such as Building Green TV and others that are having an impact on buying decisions.

But, I think it’s also a credit to manufacturers and designers, who have created products which make the decision to choose green a pretty easy one.   Buying a green materials means you’re getting look and durability as well as sustainability, and the idea that these are mutually exclusive is now a thing of the past.

For another example of an exemplary green building materials guide, I’d encourage you to check out Planet Green green materials guide, which is an accessible and informative set of pages that gives buyers an overview as to what some of the main advantages are with modern flooring and other building materials.

Cheers!

Rob.

But, given the major concerns about dwindling resources, and the threat of global climate change, many designers have sought to rethink the way that they approach their jobs.  The thinking when it comes to green building is about separating from the dependency on these systems in favor of looking at and building toward the prevailing environmental conditions of a site before foundations are laid.  This concept has been referred to as passive design.

Passive design involves using as little technology as possible to heat and cool a building, with a reliance on building placement in relation to the sun more so than on HVAC systems.

In this article from Palm Springs CA The Desert Sun [ED: URL of article no longer available, Sept 2011], an interview with San Francisco-based green building architect Eric Corey Freed reveals that part of the problem in recent energy inefficiency is not down to bad practices of residents so much as it is down to when Freed considers to be bad design.  Here’s what he says from that article:

“We cover buildings with stucco that makes them hotter; we put on tile roofs that store up heat,” Freed said. “We build potentially hollow wooden boxes and don’t concern ourselves with how they face the sun.”

And,

If we’re not careful, in the next 10 years, we’re not going to recognize the environment. The whole thing is tied up with bad design. We’ll plunk down a big air conditioner, and we externalize the cost to everyone we can. We externalize it to the homeowner; we externalize it to the environment. We’re externalizing it to foreign countries.

In the context of this article, he’s talking about the desert climate, which has a set of conditions which do not apply in the Pacific Northwest, for instance.  And where I don’t think he’s advocating the abandonment of HVAC systems, I think he is saying that greater energy efficiency and physical placement of buildings are directly tied, and that it is this which should drive design, not dependence on external systems and the outside economies it takes to run them.  It is a compelling idea that convinces me that green building really is just common sense when it comes to design.

Take a look at this interview with Freed, talking about the green building approach in general, appealing to the consumer’s perspective:

In addition to his pursuits in design, Freed has founded Urban Re:Vision, which is a passive design, green building organization that seeks to find ways of greening urban areas at the city block level.

And for more information about his work, check out the Eric Corey Freed website.

Cheers,

Rob.

As the article itself states, green building is often presented in the media as the next big thing in the construction industry.  It’s certainly struck me that way, and I’ve made that pretty apparent on this blog.   Yet, some practical points for the benefit of firms who are attempting to break into some new ways of approaching a green approach to a project is a logical step to make sure it continues in the right direction.

Solar panels as installed in Brighton, England. Image courtesy of Dominic's Pics. Click image to view Flickr stream.

Here are some very interesting points that the article raises that caught my eye the most:

• Bidding on projects exclusively on price is a thing of the past.  Skills, formal qualifications, and innovation are now more important than ever, even more than the lowest bid
• Green building isn’t something to enter into casually.  It means a sales and marketing re-fit in addition to the skills and qualifications of staff as cultural forces and economic conditions shift
• Strong alliances with outside sources – more experienced contractors, associations,  and green building suppliers – is vital.  Networks of people and the brand visibility or good reputations with which they are associated become assets when entering the market.  They also provide learning opportunities in a new paradigm
• Heavily invest in staff training and/or strategic hires to build internal authority on green building practices and standards complementary to the expertise fostered in relationships outside of the company
• Understand that investing in green means investing in a better product, just because green building is defined by an emphasis on creating more using less

Actually, in looking over some of these points that struck me most in the article, it seems that they can be applied to any industry, not simply to construction.

Cheers!

Rob.

The goal of creating more while using less is not only a logical one, but also one that pays better.  And yet, the McKinsey report also mentions the reasons why this goal has  yet to be reached.  The barriers which have stopped the goal of greater energy efficiency and the lessening of environmental impact have been:

• A requirement for a significant upfront investment
• Fragmentation, due to various agencies and sources of such inefficiencies being so diverse and unaffiliated
• Difficulties in measuring the width and breadth of lost energy

Putting a lot of capital down at the beginning of a process that is meant to pay out over a long period of time has been very risky,  sometimes simply impractical .  Accountability and responsibility in terms of who ‘owns’ the whole issue of inefficiencies is also a big question with no black and white answer.  And in terms of quantifying energy lost with how it impacts a return has been historically difficult to track as well.

Money image courtesy of AMagill. Click image to view Flickrstream.

This report seems to take these barriers  into account not in a touchy-feelie sort of way, but rather as economic realities.   Yet the goal in overcoming them seems also to be something of an economic reality as well.  In reading this article from GreenerBuildings.com, it’s clear that the payoff is as significant as the barriers are.  Here’s a quote from the article as made by USGBC President, CEO and Founding Chairman Rick Fedrizzi :

“Green building can stimulate the economy at a level one and a half times larger than the federal stimulus bill. In terms of climate change, a commitment to energy efficiency would be the equivalent to taking the entire U.S. fleet of passenger cars and light trucks — more than 200 million vehicles — off the road.”

Once again, the point can be made is that what is required of government agencies, companies, and consumers is a change in practice, but also a change in thinking when it comes to planning, and collaboration with outside parties.  And perhaps the types of innovation that has already been demonstrated among designers in the green building field, must also be translated into the ways that costs are measured as well.

Thanks to HONBLUE and to JaniceChase for links to the articles from Twitter.

Cheers,

Rob