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Building 8500 green home an oxymoron, how efficient is 8500 green home for one person, opinions how large home can be energy efficient, environmentally friendly
In another forum where I occasionally visit, there was a thread about a woman who was building an 8500sqft "green" home - just for her. No additional family.
Most folks felt that an 8500 sqft home was an extravagance that could never be considered to be "green" (other than paint color perhaps), but on the other hand, I would be very curious to see how the energy performance numbers of this house (or a comparable - perhaps hypothetical house) could compare to a "typical" 2500sqft house in the same area.
Obviously, "being green" isn't about building 8500 sqft homes for one person, but it would make a very interesting argument if the larger house was actually more efficient than the much smaller house. Again, also taking into consideration the materials and labor used to construct the larger house...
So, imagine if someone were to construct an 8500 sqft house that incorporated super insulation, geo-thermal, high performance windows including, for example, winter solar gain on the south side, solar panels for electricity and hot water, and many of the other bells-and-whistles that would make a house as energy efficient as current technology allows.
Now imagine if that house were also built as much as possible of locally produced materials - possibly even to include recycled lumber - etc. And what if that house ended up as a zero or even net energy producer rather than energy user; would that house be considered to be "green" despite the size?
I would think that while there is no definitive answer (only opinions), it would be very interesting to hear (well, read) what other folks think in this situation...thoughts?
Even if the energy costs were zero, the huge excess of building materials would make it an extravagance. It would take a lot of extra material to clean it too.
It is a simple fact of the marketplace that premium properties in high-end areas only retain and increase in value when a home with amenities comparable to the price range are included. If you have a great high dollar lot it may be difficult to build a small home and almost certainly a poor investment.
I wanted a private lot in a very good development with high value border (no neighbors on green area with a good view) so I looked at the type of homes built it those areas. Developers build larger homes on those lots and that is what I purchased.
You can call some homes an extravagance but that is from your own point of view. You can do the same when talking about others vehicles, clothing, travel, or even early retirement. I think most people have what they earned and have the right to live their life as they choose.
Maybe we are a little too judgmental when it comes to others lifestyle decisions.
You can call some homes an extravagance but that is from your own point of view. You can do the same when talking about others vehicles, clothing, travel, or even early retirement. I think most people have what they earned and have the right to live their life as they choose.
Maybe we are a little too judgmental when it comes to others lifestyle decisions.
The question was about how green such a home could be. I gave an opinion on that. Get off your own high horse and aren't these supposed be on topic?
Huh? You are the one that called it an extravagance regardless of the energy efficiency... and I think we have no right to be judgmental beyond that.
I have no high horse and take offense to your post.
Awfully defensive of you to take my comment personally when the post had nothing to do with you in the first place. Sorry you are offended, but I am also offended by your scolding judgmental tone to me and my opinion to which I am entitled.
I opined that the sheer amount of materials made it a not very green building when considering how little use it would have with one person. I stand by my opinion.
If you have an opinion on the actual subject instead of personal attacks, please share it and why.
In another forum where I occasionally visit, there was a thread about a woman who was building an 8500sqft "green" home - just for her. No additional family.
And what if that house ended up as a zero or even net energy producer rather than energy user; would that house be considered to be "green" despite the size?
I would think that while there is no definitive answer (only opinions), it would be very interesting to hear (well, read) what other folks think in this situation...thoughts?
My thought - the house would be considered "green". The size doesn't really matter whether the house would be green or not. It has all the characteristics of green construction.
Overkill on the size - my opinion - yes. 8500 square feet. I can't even imagine that much space. My house is 1100 square feet and plenty. But, if she feels the need and can afford, then go for it. To each their own.
I am not entirely sold on come of the "green" technologies though. Solar is nice, but the initial cost is very high. I checked into a system for my house - $20K roughly for installation that would save about $50 per month. It would have taken 30 years to pay back. Not a great investment as far as I am concerned. If the initial cost was less, or I had a greater saving in electricity, then perhaps.
Some of the other technologies and techniques I agree with and have incorporated into my house.
While the house could certainly be "certified" green, it's kind of missing the point. The homeowner will use less utilities and have lower heating and cooling costs than comparable McMansions that aren't green, but she will still be using a lot when measured by the number of people those costs are supporting.
There are a few major components to the "green" movement that many people don't recognize or admit.
First, some enterprising folks have used it to create a demand for their business product. The one that comes to mind immediately is the "green" grocery bag. I've nothing against the concept of re-using a bag to carry groceries, although if I were a store owner I would be concerned about people lugging containers INTO my store where they could hide stolen items. What the "green" bags business owners have done, however, is start a campaign using the proper buzzwords to incite those who want to be green. The purpose of that campaign is to eliminate the micro-mole (a type of ultra-thin plastic that is strong, yet degrades quickly in ultraviolet or ozone) plastic bags. Is this a REAL saving of the environment? Of course not. How many of us (raise your hand here) use the micro-mole bags for garbage, cat spit-up, litter pan emptying, baby kuh-kuh, and other types of trash, recognizing it as a low-impact waste bag? I go through at least ten of these a week, and I also use them as cheap gloves for touch-up painting or greasy parts handling. The alternatives are the relatively expensive and less environment-friendly consumer bags sold in stores, and the additional purchase of latex or nitrile gloves, both of which are another chance for someone to make money and add a drain on planetary resources.
Cities afraid of roadside litter, and stores afraid to buck the green movement capitulate to the pressure of these business owners to "save the environment." Plu-ese! Spare me the B.S.. This is a group of businesspeople trying to make a buck and eventually turn a no-cost resource into a profit stream. Mark my words, it'll be less than a year or two before some city or state decides to tax the free grocery bag a penny or two per bag, and it will spread like a tax cancer to the entire nation.
Secondly, true "green" or environmentalist thought is nothing more than a death wish and de-valuing of human life that reduces productivity. People, by the very act of living, impact the environment. The only way to completely eliminate that footprint is to never be born. Now that you are on the planet, trying nobly to minimize the amount of resources you use does a few things. It frees those resources up for people and businesses that WILL happily use them, reducing competition and cost to them; it puts you into a mindset of "Oh, I can't use that, that would be evil to the world," denying you pleasures or resources that often have little real impact; and it turns you into an unthinking willing pawn of any crackpot who CLAIMS that their product is green and good. None of the above is particularly good for you or the environment, and the same line of thought was explored quite thoroughly during the Russian Revolution of 1917, where the rich lost their houses to the state, which then housed starving peasants in them. Follow the espoused concepts of many eco-nuts to their logical conclusion, and you'll end up in the same type of eco-nuthouse.
Third, most of the claims by the greenies are overhyped or just plain wrong. Remember back to the 1970s, when it was claimed that we would be drowning in those little triangular plastic parts used in filter cigarettes? I challenge you to go to a beach or park or anywhere that smokers frequented during those years, and find one. Unless thousands of tiny ecologically minded fairies and gnomes scoured the landscape, that plastic decayed or was destroyed.
A favorite non-sensical practical joke played by the eco-nuts on the public is the classic - "Don't let your dog p00p too close to a river, lest it contaminate it during flood stage." Right. And pray tell me, what do bears do in the woods? How do you reconcile saving bears and wildlife with wanting clean rivers? Use some common sense, people, rather than trying to find any excuse to beat others up in the name of ecological correctness.
Fourth, some "green" activities are simply hidden taxes. Recycling started out simply enough, a tax on bottles and cans, so that people would return them to stores and not litter the roadsides. The poor and those who cared could collect the ones that were still tossed out of car windows, and make a few bucks. It was annoying, but worked OK. As the market for metal and paper bloomed, cities decided that recycling would save the world. Yeah, sure. What they really found was that their often highly paid citizens could nobly act as unpaid laborers in the comfort of their own homes, sorting their own trash into more salable clean glass, metal, and paper. Simultaneously, the cost of landfill space could be reduced a little.
When you dutifully wash that organic soup can out to prepare it for the recycle bin, you are paying for municipal water, water that is becoming yet another primary income stream for municipalities at the expense of the environment, and using your labor to support a bloated government that you helped create; a government that has to think up more ways to get money out of you, in order to maintain such necessities as mandated landscaping down the middle of roads, landscapes using pesticides and yet more precious water.
The money made off your recycling labors also goes towards the purchase of mowers and the carbon emitting gasoline to fuel them, along with other dubious "environmental" projects. The farmer who lets his old hay rake and 62 Plymouth rust into a field has less of a negative impact on the environment than the average highly motivated and " green" city dweller.
So, in the midst of all this, when someone asks "Is building an 8500sf house for a single person environmentally green?" it both gives me hope that someone else has realized that the emperor has no clothes, and it makes me despair that we live in a such a non-thinking environment that the question even had to be asked.
Yeah, let's be responsible and thoughtful in what we do. Let's not be mass-consumers and trash producers. But we also need to stop using "green" as an intolerant new-age religion and excuse to clobber the heads of infidels. If you are that dedicated to being green that you can't stand the impact of humanity, please do the planet and your warped ethics a favor and make your exit before another organic carrot is killed in your name.
"Green" or not, an 8500 sqft house for one person is an extravagance. Heck, an 8500 sqft house for six people is an extravagance. And, since by simplest defintion, anything that is not a necessity is an extravagance, one could argue that the very first time one of our long-lost ancestors wrapped him or herself in someone else's skin (quite literally), that it was an extravagance; and it was certainly an inconvenience for whoever had originally worn the skin.
Calling something an extravagance does not automatically make it unfit for civilized society and it doesn't mean a one-way trip to hell for having indulged.
Can someone build an 8500 sqft home that can be evironmentally acceptable - if not entirely friendly? Again, asking what if this home were to produce more energy than it consummed?
Is an 8500 sqft home that is a net producer of energy more socially and environmentally responsible (in our current environment) than four 2100 sqft homes that are net users of energy?
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and aren't these supposed be on topic?
