pambo's Full Review: Jerry Yudelson - Choosing Green: The Homebuyer's G...
Rather than a rant, "Choosing Green: The Homebuyer's Guide to Good Green Homes" provides a sensible path for those who want to think about homes in a different way.
The choice to "go green" is a matter of picking a better lifestyle, the author argues. He sees it as a metaphor for quality of life. He lays out a short argument for global-warming/climate change beliefs and then moves into each step of how to make the changes he belives we should make.
He starts with what he calls the green revolution, talking to homeowners who have already made changes, the threat global warming presents, how energy use changes in the home and the damage homes cause to the environment. (In the last category, think high energy use, large amounts of water consumed, and tons, literally, of construction debris.)
He moves on to what constitutes a green home, lookin at sustainability, meaning not doing things like building on farmland, conserving water and energy, indoor air quality, and materials used. He gives us an explanation of some key building matters:
Heat flows from hot to cold, meaning a warm house wants to lose heat in winter and a cool house wants to gain heat in summer It takes energy to maintain a constant temperature in the home and to move air around Warmer air rises and cooler air falls Air moves from higher to lower pressure Moisture flows from higher to lower concentrations Moisture condense on a cool or cold surface Gravity pulls everything down so water that gets through the cladding of the home has to be taken out at the bottom of the wall
And there are eight basic climatic regions in the United States and Canada, which is important to energy use because of the weather: Hot-humid (East Texas through the lower Southeast) Mixed-humid (upper Southeast, and Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, the Ohio Valley, parts of Illinois and Indiana, plus southern New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania) Hot-dry (West Texas, sothern Arizonia and the California Central Valley) Mixed-dry (Las Vegas, southern New Mexico and the Texas Pahandle) Marine (West coast from San Diego to Vancouver) Cold (Everything else in the United States through western British Columbia and southeastern Alaska) Very cold (Most of the rest of populated Canada and Alaska, plus parts of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota) Subarctic/Arctic (Interior and northern Alaska and Nunavut, Canada))
This section is important because it lays out information we might not ordinarily think about but will become more important in the future. For example, in orienting a house, particularly one in hot, sunny regions, a house should have a south-facing roof slope to accommodate solar panels. (A builder I know who constructed his own home couldn't orient it the way he wanted because of zoning codes. That has severely limited his prospects for installing solar panels that will pay off any time soon because they simply won't collect that much energy.)
From there, the author explains energy-rating programs available in different parts of the country, how to know if a home you want to buy is truly green, and expectations for the future value of environmentally designed structures. There's also a lengthy glossary of building and environmental terms and a resource list, including where to find out more about regional environmental rating programs.
This is a book that works best for someone starting from scratch, either building or buying a green property, but there is plenty of information, too, for those who want to upgrade. There are good charts explaining the value of improving insulation or windows, or eliminating duct leakage; adding solar panels, upgrading appliances and so on. I know that replacing a couple of windows two years ago made a huge difference in the temperature of two rooms; I'm hoping to do more this fall, and add insulation in a crawlspace under a stairwell that seems to be getting colder every year. These are all among the many recommendations included in the book.
There's a lot of rock-solid information here, thoroughly explained and easily digested.
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