Because they are so small or perhaps because they are so inexpensive, lighting fixtures are often the last component to be incorporated when we are remodeling our homes – an afterthought that can often be overlooked.

But your choice of lighting can have a significant impact on your home’s carbon footprint and your energy bill. So which should you choose?

Not all light sources are created equal, so we’ve listed the cleanest, greenest, easiest lighting options you can use in your home.

CFL is the way to go

Compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs, use only a quarter as much energy as the traditional incandescent bulb and last ten times longer – up to 10,000 hours. They do cost a bit more but you can expect them to pay for themselves in energy savings after about 500 hours of use, saving you around $80 over their lifetimes.

Because they release less heat compared to a traditional bulb, they are safer and can contribute to a reduced cooling effort in the summer months. In fact, the old incandescent bulb wastes about 90 to 95 percent of its energy output on heat!

But don’t forget about LEDs

Because this technology is newer and is still making its way into the marketplace, LEDs (light emitting diodes) are a slightly more expensive green lighting option. These are even more energy-efficient than CFLs, capable of reducing electricity load by 80-90%, and last even longer, up to 100,000 hours.

As they become more popular, however, their price will come down.

More than just a bulb

When shopping around for lighting fixtures for your home, remember that the materials you choose can be earth-friendly as well. Today’s floor lamps, desk lights, and wall and ceiling fixtures can often be found in natural, recycled or reused materials.

Additionally, since LED bulbs last for so long, most sellers of LED lamps market these with the bulbs already built into them. Motion sensors, dimmers, and timers can also be a good way to control energy usage during times when lights aren’t being used.

Recycle!

Fluorescent bulbs contain a small amount of mercury, which means they can’t be thrown away in the trash. Every locality has slightly differing policies on recycling bulbs, but a general guide to disposing of old bulbs can be found on the EPA’s website. LEDs, on the other hand, contain no mercury.

Be green

It may seem obvious, but natural light is still the cheapest, greenest, and often most pleasant way to light a home. Try to place windows in places where they can benefit most from the sun’s rays, and if you’re doing a remodel, consider adding skylights or light wells.

If possible, you might also consider switching to a sustainable energy supply. If a wind farm—or even solar panels—aren’t feasible for your home, many electric utilities offer customers a green power option for a few dollars extra a month.

So while they may be physically small, light bulbs do contribute a significant amount to a building’s energy consumption. If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an EnergyStar-approved one, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be equivalent to the emissions of 800,000 cars!

For more information on energy-efficient lighting and where to buy bulbs and fixtures, check out this post from TreeHugger and the Environmental Working Group’s bulb buying guide.

With some help from our friends at TopTen, we’ve put together our favorite appliances by category. Our choices are based on the things that really matter: energy efficiency, initial cost, ease of installation and lifetime cost savings.

Here they are:

The Clothes Washer

Model: Maytag MHW6000XW and MHW7000X

How much? From $832

This 4.3 cubic foot clothes washer uses just 114 kilowatt hours of energy every year, which is at least 200 kWh less than a typical clothes washer. These Maytag models rank very highly in tests of thoroughness of cleaning and speedy dry times.

The projected cost savings over the lifetime of the product is about $280.

The Dishwasher

Models: Bosch SHE8ER5#UC and SHX8ER5#UC

How much? From $1288

These 1.9 gallon dishwashers use on average 180 kWh per year and have the potential to save up to $311 in energy costs over the first 12 years. The ultra-efficient models have a half-load option for small loads and boast water savings of almost 500 gallons per year.

High-tech features include a water-softening feature that reduces spotting on glass, and insulation that makes it the quietest in its class.

The Refrigerator

Model: Whirlpool WRT351SFY

How much? From $695

This 21.1 cubic foot refrigerator uses approximately 364 kWh per year and can knock over $300 off your energy bill over the first 12 years.

The EnergyStar-approved refrigerator with a top freezer is the most energy-efficient on the market, and carries a lower price tag than its upmarket peers.

The Television

Model: Sharp LC-60LE632U and LC-60LE633U

How much? From $1398

Considering how often they are used, large televisions can be among the biggest users of electricity in a home. But not all models on the market are energy hogs. These two models by Japanese manufacturer Sharp wed minimal energy expenditure with a brilliant 60-inch screen.

They use on average 139 kWh per year and save more on energy costs than any other EnergyStar television on the market.

The Desktop

Model: Apple Mac Mini – MC270

How much? From $599

Long known for its sleek, high-design electronics, Apple’s computers function extremely efficiently as well. This mini desktop computer requires a separate monitor but its small size makes it valuable for space-constrained consumers.

The computer uses 112 fewer kilowatt hours per year than the average EnergyStar model on the market.

The seriously zippy Mini features 2 GB of memory and a 500 GB hard drive.

According to the study, existing homes that have been certified green by a third party sold for 30% more on average than their uncertified counterparts. New green homes sold for 8% more than regular homes.

The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Homes certification is the most well-known of such third party certifiers, but green homes can also be certified by Energy Star, Earth Advantage, and EarthCraft House.

Portland, Oregon-based Earth Advantage Institute are a nonprofit organization dedicated to sustainable building practices.

This is the fourth year that the institute has conducted the study, and while it has found significant premiums for green home prices every year, this year’s findings showed the most robust margin.

Other studies show similarly encouraging results. A report by Atlanta-area realtor Carson Matthews shows that green homes in Atlanta sold faster and closer to the asking price. Certified homes were on the market for an average of only 97 days, compared to 123 days for traditionally built homes.

Josh Wynne, a green home-builder based in Florida, compares the premium asked on green homes to the cachet of buying a luxury brand car over a similarly equipped conventional car. But “clients are naturally skeptical of green building,” he cautions. “If you’re disingenuous or sell green as an upgrade like a granite counter,” buyers won’t bite.

In other words, today’s buyers don’t look for green features merely as a flourish – they want to be assured that green homes will save them money in the long run.

Garbett Homes, a green home builder based out of Salt Lake City, promises energy savings of 60 to 80% on its solar and geothermal power equipped homes. Garbett homes boast electric bills averaging only $5 a month and natural gas bills of only $7 a month.

Rene Oehlerking, marketing director at Garbett, says they wanted to offer green energy solutions at a price point that first-time homebuyers could afford. Consequently, Garbett’s homes cost on average only $14,000 more than traditionally built comparable homes.

But convincing potentials buyers of the value in green homes is only half the battle. In the current housing climate, appraisers are unlikely to assess green homes to their full premium value.

GreenStreet Development, a sustainability design consultant, has developed a guide to assist appraisers in making meaningful distinctions between traditionally built homes and homes with green features. Philip Beere, founder and president of GreenStreet Development, gives the example of a home in Tempe, Arizona that was first appraised at $140,000 but was re-assessed by an appraiser more experienced in green homes at $200,000 – or $15,000 above the asking price.

Of course, long term energy savings are the most quantifiable justification for spending a premium on a green home, and any homeowner who has paid a utility bill lately could tell you that.

This is the second of a six-part series on how you can greenhab your home or investment property using green materials. In our first post, we took a look at flooring; over the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a look at appliances, lighting and more. Stay tuned!

Choosing the right insulation can be one of the more difficult choices when it comes to greenhabbing or building a home.

For one, there are a lot of different products on the market, pretty much all of whom make competing claims of being the greenest, the cheapest, the safest, the most efficient, and so on.

Then there’s the fact that it can be difficult to know, prior to actually installing and testing insulation, how effective it will be in your home –– and then once it’s installed, as many of us know, it’s a pain (not to mention expensive) to redo.

What’s not in doubt is what a difference good insulation makes. Properly insulating a home’s walls and ceilings can save you significant money when it comes to heating and cooling costs. By preventing the growth of mold in the walls, insulation also improves your home’s indoor air quality.

The most common forms of insulation are fiberglass and cellulose. Though cheap, fiberglass has a heap of embodied energy, and usually only contains a small amount of recycled material. It can also release eye, nose and throat irritants, and be dangerous to install without the right safety gear.

Spray foam insulation, meanwhile, is petroleum based, so is a long way from anything you might consider green or renewable.

Happily, though, there a growing number of clean, green and efficient insulation alternatives on the market. Let’s take a look at the best of them.

Greensulate

Greensulate (pictured above) is perhaps the most innovative green insulation on the market. It’s grown rather than manufactured, which means far less emissions and resources are used in its construction.

The ingenious process involves using fungi to bond agricultural byproducts, resulting in a super efficient rigid board insulation that’s completely safe –– so safe, in fact, that it poses no allergy risks and can be installed without any special safety gear.

The only cons at this stage are Greensulate’s limited availability, and the fact it’s only available as rigid board.

Cellulose

Cellulose insulation is made out of recycled newsprint and other paper sources. Cellulose can be put into walls as a house is being built, or blown into sheetrocked walls and attic spaces and for extra thermal protection.

Cellulose insulation is becoming increasingly popular: it’s been successfully installed in over one million homes in the UK alone. US company GreenFiber offers a range of cellulose insulation products, all of which contain a minimum of 85% recycled material.

The only cons with cellulose insulation are that it can settle if blown in dry, and can also absorb moisture.

Wool

Oregon Shepherd are one of a number of companies manufacturing totally natural wool insulation. Oregon Shepherd, however, claim that their product is the ‘only loose fill, blown-in wool insulation in the world.’

The company offers both batt and loose fill insulation products, both of which, according to the company, are fire, vermin and mold resistant. Importantly, they’re also non-toxic, which means they’re safe to install yourself.

Wool insulation has a lot of other things going for it: it can absorb and release moisture, which helps maintain a constant temperature; it’s also resilient, and can help absorb toxins in the home.

Oregon Shepherd’s wool insulation is totally recyclable and renewable, which makes it a truly green product. The only downsides: it’s quite a bit more expensive than traditional insulation, and is not yet widely available.

Air Krete

Ait Krete is an innovative cement-based foaming insulation. It has a high and long-lasting insulation value, is non-toxic and mold resistant, and doesn’t burn or release any smoke.

Air Krete’s makers claim that the insulation is also 100% cavity filling, and that it won’t expand, shrink or settle. What’s more, it can also be used as a soundproofing tool, and is among the cheaper green insulation products on the market.

The cons? It’s still somewhat limited in its availability, and there’s a fair bit of embodied energy involved in its manufacture.

Mineral Wool

Mineral wool insulation is made out of what’s known as steel slag, a byproduct of steel manufacturing consisting of limestone and dirt. To turn it into insulation, slag is combined with chemicals and heated and spun into a fibrous material.

The resulting product is rated as being almost as efficient as traditional fiberglass insulation. It’s also mold and fire proof, and is extremely resilient and long lasting.

On the negative side, mineral wool insulation can release some eye, nose and throat irritants, and is primarily available in batt form, which some have reported difficulties in installing.

Beyond these five, there are a number of other green insulation options, including denim and hemp insulation. Each have their own advantages and drawbacks, and should be looked at in the context of the home you’re insulating and your budget.

Getting the right insulation is a critical part of greening your home. Thankfully, there are more and more green insulation options to choose from, which means more choice, but also more claims, counterclaims and greenwashing.

Which means the most important step you can take in insulating your home is to first get properly informed.

Back in January, we gave you our favorite green building products of 2010. Because we received such a great reaction, and because 2011 is shaping up to be quite a stellar year for green construction, we’ve decided to share our top products of the year thus far.

The following products were each selected by a panel of experts and featured in Sustainable Industries’ annual top 10 list.

All were chosen with an eye toward environmental impact, market feasibility, aesthetic, and value, and each are compatible with USGBC’s LEED accreditation system. So they must be good. We hope you like them as much as we do.

1. Modlet, by ThinkEco – It’s a well-known fact that our electronics and appliances consume energy even when we’re not using them, simply by being plugged in. Surge protectors, which have been on the market for years, can curtail this problem by allowing you to switch off the flow of electricity to any appliance plugged into it. But these clumsy devices often must be located in hard-to-reach places like behind a desk, and users may forget to switch them off consistently.

The modlet (short for “modern outlet”) is a sleek, easy-to-use solution to these problems. Roughly the size and shape of a typical wall outlet, it is attached to any wall outlet and appliances are plugged into it. The modlet’s energy usage is monitored and controlled online, so users can set it to turn off while at work and while sleeping, and on at other times. The modlet can easily shave 10% off your electricity bill.

At a cost of about $13 per square foot, including installation, Indow Windows are a great, cost effective option for those unwilling or unable to replace their windows. It’s especially good for those who want to retain their home’s original character. Have a closer look at the windows on the interactive 3D display at right.

2. Indow Windows – Sam Pardue’s idea for the Indow Window came when he discovered it would cost him $35,000 to replace the charming original windows of his home with energy-efficient double-pane windows. So he came up with a PVC-free silicon tubing that can be applied to the inside of a window’s frame. The tubing prevents air leakage, making windows much more energy efficient.

3. HydroRight dual flush converter, by MJSI – A fourth-generation plumber developed this simple, easy-to-install toilet tank insert that converts any standard toilet to the water-saving dual flush variety common in Europe and Asia. The device can be installed without the use of any tools, and can be found at most home improvement stores for just $20. It can reduce a toilet’s water consumption by 30% and pay for itself in four months.

4. Greensulate, by Ecovative – In a recent post we told you about how upgrading your insulation can improve your indoor air quality by preventing the growth of mold in walls. And there’s no better choice for your new insulation than Greensulate, a great new energy efficient insulation. Greensulate is not like any other insulation currently on the market: it’s grown rather than manufactured, which means far less emissions and resources are used in its construction.

The ingenious process involves using fungi to bond agricultural byproducts, resulting in a super efficient rigid board insulation that’s completely safe –– so safe, in fact, that it poses no allergy risks and can be installed without any special safety gear.

5. Breathe Living Wall, by DIRTT Environmental Systems – Speaking of improving indoor air quality, houseplants can do wonders to absorb dangerous indoor air pollutants and generate fresh oxygen, as we looked at in another recent article. There are a number of products on the market aimed at getting enough houseplants inside your home to make a difference. Most, however, are either large, bulky systems that require plumbing hook-ups or are merely indoor planters that can make a room look cluttered when more than a handful are used.

DIRTT Environmental Systems, which has made a name for itself by designing green wall and flooring solutions, has come up with a modular system of aluminum planter panels that can be affixed to any wall. Watering the plants is easy and the clean design makes this living wall easy on the eyes, too.

As scientists uncover more evidence of the environmental and health effects of indoor air pollutants, builders and homeowners are taking ever more precautions to identify the source of these pollutants and limit their impacts. But just as indoor air quality becomes more of a concern, it is also becoming easier to control.

Indoor air pollutants are composed primarily of airborne mold particles and VOCs (volatile organic compounds), which originate in many manmade chemicals, such as paints, cleaning supplies, pesticides, and building materials like carpets and furnishings.

Both airborne mold and VOCs have been linked to health complications such as headaches, respiratory problems, skin irritation, allergies, and asthma.

The statistics on indoor air quality are worrying, to say the least. According to the EPA, Americans spend more than 90% of their time inside. And it’s inside, recent studies report, that indoor pollutants can be concentrated at levels up to 100 times those found outdoors.

And indoor air quality is not just a human health issue: it’s an environmental issue as well. The same building products and household chemicals responsible for releasing harmful VOCs into the air can pose a significant threat to wildlife after they are discarded, and can leech toxic runoff into groundwater. Fortunately the sources of these pollutants are now well known, and alternative products are readily available and usually comparable in price.

Dealing With Mold

Mold can form on any surface that provides a food source, along with sufficient oxygen and moisture. In the case of most buildings today, that means many wood- and paper-based substances like untreated paper-faced gypsum board, wood wall studs, and wood-based sheathings. Once exposed to water from precipitation, indoor plumbing, or even humid air, mold will thrive and spread on these surfaces. Often the presence of mold may not be identifiable by smell until it has spread completely through a home.

The primary way to ensure that mold doesn’t form on the inside of a building’s walls is to reduce the opportunities for moisture to enter the wall cavities. There are a number of ways to do this. First, fiberglass insulation should be used in the place of insulation made from natural materials. Fiberglass insulation repels moisture and is resistant to mold and microbial growth.

Second, traditional gypsum board should be replaced with either paper-faced gypsum board treated with bio-inhibitors, or paperless fiberglass gypsum board, both of which prevent mold growth.

Lastly, homeowners can opt for a smart vapor retarder system. This works by capturing moisture on its surface in drier periods, and then allowing its pores to expand to allow moisture to completely pass through wall systems in humid conditions.

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)

The other major component of indoor air pollution is the volatile organic compound. VOCs can be emitted from solids or liquids and have the potential to cause serious short- and long-term health defects.

For years, homebuilders have unknowingly used construction materials––paints, carpeting, adhesives, plywood, and PVC piping––that contain highly toxic chemicals. In recent years, most manufacturers have become cognizant of the dangers of VOC-emitting substances and have severely limited their use. An increasing numbfer of manufacturers are now creating products that have been specifically developed to have zero or extremely low levels of of VOCs.

Controlling the emission of VOCs in the home is one of the easiest ways to improve indoor air quality, as it can usually be achieved simply by checking the labels on household products like cleaning supplies, pesticides, and building materials and finishes.

GREENGUARD Environmental Institute, an organization committed to measuring the impacts of many household products on indoor air quality, has identified an assortment of products that have passed their strict VOC emissions standards. Many of these products bare the GREENGUARD certification seal on their labels, but the complete list of indoor air-friendly products can be found on their website.

Don’t Lock The Bad Stuff In

It’s important to remember that the same techniques used by environmentally-conscious builders and homeowners to reduce energy use by creating an airtight building envelope can actually exacerbate the threat of indoor air pollution by effectively trapping water vapor and pollutants in the home.

The best way to manage this threat is to maintain sufficient building ventilation and to reduce opportunities for moisture to enter the building through ducts, window and door frames, roofs, and fireplaces by using foam insulation, caulking, and weatherstripping. When a home is sufficiently airtight, moisture-free, and nontoxic, its inhabitants will surely breathe easier, and so will the environment.

Over the last few years, a loose collection of people interested in smaller and more minimal living spaces have started to come together as something of a movement –– the Tiny House Movement.

The Tiny House Movement is not about living in deliberately tiny spaces. Instead, it’s about creating living spaces in which you have room for everything you really need –– and no more. It’s about simplified, cheaper living, self-sufficiency and social consciousness.

Tiny houses are, as you might expect, much smaller than their regular counterparts: where the average American home is usually around 2400 square meters, tiny homes are typically no bigger than 400 square meters.

A new breed of builders have taken up the challenge of turning small spaces into cosy, innovative and totally livable homes. Austin builder Louis R Burns is one of them. Burns recently completed an elegant, wonderfully simple 80-square meter tiny house, building the entire thing on a 16-foot trailer. Check it out in the video below:

‘Austin Tiny House was born out of necessity,’ Burns says. ‘That’s not a global climate change necessity, though it helps with that too. It was born out of the idea that I needed a place to live and wasn’t interested in flushing more rent money down the tubes. That necessity led me to a small but growing movement of people seeking greater simplicity and freedom in their lives.’

Because of their diminutive size, Tiny Houses are far cheaper than their conventional counterparts: Burns’ Austin Tiny House was built for $8500, and was put up for sale for just $10000.

Another amazing tiny house was recently featured by PBS. Its owner, Dee, moved from a large, regular house into a truly tiny 84-square-meter home that was smaller than her previous bathroom. As you’ll see, Dee has no regrets: she loves the simplicity of her new space  –– and the fact it only costs eight dollars in utilities to run each month doesn’t hurt.

For more inspiring tiny houses, visit the Tiny House Blog.

What if a building wasn’t just sustainable, but actually benefitted the environment? It’s a lofty goal, but the University of British Columbia is trying to achieve it with the construction of what they believe will be the greenest building in North America.

Right now, the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) is a two-story shell of a building: there are no doors, the stairs are rough, and rebar and plywood are the main decor instead of office furniture and potted plants. But by the time it’s completed this June, CIRS will be more than just a stylish campus building: it will meet both the LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge standards, and give back more than it’s taking in air, water and energy, upping the productivity and happiness of the people who inhabit it.

“The aspiration is for a regenerative building, essentially a building that can live within its footprint, what’s available to it in terms of mass and energy flow on the site or within the site,” says Alberto Cayuela, associate director of UBC’s Sustainability Initiative, which is in charge of the CIRS project.

Not just a bunch of hot air

CIRS relies on a series of heating systems, including 16 geothermal rods, solar hot water, and a heater exchange connected to the adjacent Earth and Ocean Sciences Building.

In a climate where the amount of heating in winter matches the cooling in summer, geothermal rods could successfully mine the earth’s cooling and hot air to operate a building like CIRS.

But in a place like Vancouver, where the amount of heat required is three times the cooling, a geothermal system runs the risk of taking out too much heat and cooling the earth, causing a system decline over time. To avoid this, CIRS takes as much heat out of the ground as it does cool air, and relies on heat exchangers capturing wasted air from a nearby building to warm up the rest.

“(Earth and Ocean Science Building) consumes 1,600 megawatt hours a year of steam from the steam plant, and 990 goes through the roof, the fume hoods. So that building, by law, that’s 10 air changes in hour in every fume hood, and that’s 990 megawatt hours through the roof,” says John Robinson, executive director of the Sustainability Initiative.

“We’re taking all of that heat, bringing it into CIRS, we only need 300, we’re giving 600 back to that building. So we’re reducing their steam use by 600, which reduces natural gas burning by 860 at the steam plant — that’s 150 times a year. So the net affect of adding this building is to reduce natural gas burning at UBC.”

Robinson hopes building symbiosis models such as this will not only inspire future construction to rely on existing systems and improve them, but will inspire others to think of sustainability as being about more than just one building.

“Sustainability is not a building scale phenomenon, it’s an actual neighbourhood or community scale,” he says.

Water, water everywhere

Few places in the country get as much rain as Vancouver, so it seemed unnecessary to the Sustainability Initiative that all the water for CIRS had to be pumped in from the city reservoir when less than five per cent of the building’s water had to be drinkable.

Instead, CIRS will act as a water treatment plant, collecting and storing rainwater, treating it to grey water standards, and using it for the building’s non-potable water needs, like toilets, urinals, and irrigation.

“This location we get around 1,200-1,300 millimeteres of rain per year, and we have a catchment area of around 500-600 square metres, so there’s a lot of water we can harvest during the year,” says Cayuela.

“We have a 100 cubic metre system essentially that will be our main repository for rainwater harvesting, and we’re going to treat water on demand.”

The treatment process will be aerobic: pumping oxygen into the water to encourage bacteria to eat waste matter and turn it into carbon dioxide. It’s a more energy intensive process than anaerobic treatment, which doesn’t require oxygen but produces methane gas, making it a potentially more dangerous method of water treatment.

During slower periods of the year, such as the summer and Christmas break, CIRS will treat sewage water from other buildings, thereby reducing the amount of wastewater they produce. Excess water or storm run off will be treated and redirected into a well drilled into the aquifer, not only improving the quality of water returned to earth, but preventing the erosion of nearby cliffs.

“The runoff from every building on campus right now goes down through the soil, hits the clay layer, and goes off through the cliffs and erodes the cliffs,” Robinson told The Tyee.

“Our water discharge will go down the well and recharge the aquifer. So it won’t contribute to the cliff erosion.”

Inhabitants vs. occupants

“We think the new sustainability agenda is about making peoples lives better, not just environments’ life better,” says Robinson.

“We define an occupant as a passive recipient of building systems: you go in, you can maybe turn on your lights, you can maybe open your window, and that’s it. Everything else, you don’t know about, you can’t control. Can we instead create a building where people are inhabitants, where they have a sense of place and engagement with their actual building and with the spaces where they work.”

Robinson aims to do that by having each of the building’s inhabitants sign a sustainability charter, committing themselves to achieving CIRS goal of benefitting the environment. But Robinson doesn’t expect people to work towards a new level of sustainability out of the goodness of their own hearts. Instead, he’s offering inhabitants five benefits: high air quality, access to daylight everywhere, individual control of your workstation’s atmosphere, real time feedback of how the building is doing, and the ability to vote on the building’s control systems.

With the exception of the 450 seat auditorium — the largest lecture hall on campus and the only one lit by skylights — Robinson and Cayuela like to boast that every horizontal surface in CIRS is covered in windows, not only allowing in natural light, but giving people control over the air quality by using windows that open manually.

“We’re putting a sensor in each window — the reason is we want to make sure we know at any given time who’s using natural ventilation when conditions allow it,” Cayuela told The Tyee.

“Or, for instance, to what degree our building inhabitants are responding to our requests, for instance if we’re expecting a very warm weekend, and asking people to leave their windows open so that the building doesn’t overheat, to what extent people are doing that.”

‘Net positive in structural carbon’: Robinson

Control over personal environment extends beyond opening and closing windows and flicking a light switch, however. Each workstation at CIRS will feature a power and data station, offering updates on the building’s energy and water consumption, as well as an air diffuser you can control.

CIRS will also feature removable partitions instead of drywall, and all the wiring will run through the raised floor system: a full 18 inches of space providing not only the ability to move workstation power systems, but also act as a natural air ventilation system. If you want to convert two small offices into one meeting room, it will take only a handyman, some tools, and a couple of hours to make the change.

In addition, most of the building is made of wood from B.C. and Oregon certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, with the floors and ceilings constructed out of two-by-fours made from pine beetle infested wood — just as strong as reinforced concrete or steel, but better for noise attenuation and prorogation.

“The amount of wood we have in this building represents more carbon being sequestered, locked away, than all the carbon emitted by the construction process and the decommissioning process at the end,” says Robinson.

“We’re net positive in structural carbon, which you don’t hear as much about, you hear a lot about operational carbon, energy use, but we think cities should really take seriously, especially in Canada, of any place on the planet, their responsibility as carbon sequestration engines.”

Driving to work would miss the point

But being the most sustainable building in North America only counts for so much when many people drive their cars to get there. A study by the university’s office of Campus and Community Planning found that in fall 2009, more trips were made to campus by transit than any other method: 58,000 in total. But cars were close behind, with 40,200 trips in the same time period — a 13 per cent decrease in car use since 1997.

Robinson says part of the existence of CIRS will be to house the Sustainability Initiative, dedicated to reducing the University’s carbon footprint through improvements to transit as well as buildings.

“We have very specific goals in all of those areas, a very active program of reducing transport by cars,” he told The Tyee, adding that almost half of the campus’ parking above ground parking spaces have been reclaimed in the last decade, and U-Pass membership has increased transit ridership by 43 per cent.

Don’t expect to see housing projects based on the CIRS model anytime, soon, however. Robinson believes the building will inspire other universities in the country to try similar models, especially after the report on the construction costs, estimated to be 15 per cent above the normal rate, is released later this year. But he doesn’t see net positive houses being modeled after the UBC building.

However, Robinson is hopeful some elements of the building are already catching on outside of university campuses.

“You may have seen (news articles about) the cross laminated timber potential for actually building high rises out of wood; it’s never been possible. Right now, six stories, I think, is the max,” he says. “But the new technology, cross laminated timber, opens the door to significant construction and Canada should be leading the world in this stuff. We have a lot of wood.”

This story courtesy of the Tyee Solutions Society, first published on www.thetyee.ca.

The article is a follow-up to a post that debunked five common green building myths, one of which was that green buildings are always more expensive.

The first project is the 50-plus homes built as part of the Make it Right foundation’s rebuilding effort in post-Katrina New Orleans. (We reported on the LEED Platinum-certified redevelopment of 16 blocks in the Lower Ninth Ward in an earlier post.) In addition to the 50 homes completed, another 100 are under construction or planned. They feature photovoltaic panels, tankless water heaters, metal roofs to reduce heat gain, nontoxic interior finishes, and energy-efficient appliances.

In Washington state, meanwhile, a group of homeowners, volunteers, and local professionals teamed up to build a small community of 11 net-zero energy homes for under $112,000 apiece. Future residents were involved in the design and construction of each home, which are able to generate all of their energy needs through renewable sources like solar and wind.

The new community of resident-builders, which calls itself Common Ground, recently earned themselves the Home Depot Foundation’s Excellence for Affordable Housing Built Responsibly award.

Finally, there’s Postgreen, a small Philadelphia-based developer who last year finished construction on a 1,150 square foot LEED Platinum certified row house which cost only $100,000. Dubbed the “100K House,” the 2-story home is a sustainable update on a traditional urban floor plan: two bedrooms sandwiching a bathroom upstairs, living room and kitchen downstairs.

The home was built with prefab high-insulation wall panels and tightly enclosed casement windows to reduce air seepage. A solar water-heating system, ductless air conditioner, and radiant in-floor heating help reduce energy consumption. In the yard, drought-resistant plants are watered by a rooftop rainwater collection tank, and permeable paving reduces stormwater runoff.

Postgreen’s 100K House won the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Homes Project of the Year award in 2010. In order to minimize overall construction costs, Postgreen “focused on those areas of green building where we saw the most value…location, site, and energy efficiency.”

Since completion, Postgreen has sold the 100K House for more than twice its cost of construction, and continues to be an active developer of cheap green homes in the Philadelphia area.

The secret to building green homes so cheaply, says Postgreen associate Nic Darling, is to think of green home features not as add-ons, but as integral building components.

“Rather than redesign the house that has been successful for them in the past,” Darling says, “[established developers] add solar panels, geothermal systems, high-end interior fixtures, extra insulation and other green features. The house gets greener…but it also increases significantly in cost.”

Often big homebuilders spend upwards of 15 percent on these green add-ons. Instead, Postgreen sets out to change the way we think about homes from the inside out.

Each of their homes is relatively small and utilizes a high-efficiency building envelope. But there is another trait that sets them apart from the average home on the U.S. market: the bulk of the construction budget is dedicated to the features that will keep the building performing efficiently in the long term, not short-lived, high cost add-ons like luxury fixtures and imported finishes.

Together these architects and builders have earned widespread recognition for their inexpensive green building achievements. But they are but a few of a growing class of designers, builders, and homeowners who have come to acknowledge that the truly valuable green buildings are the ones built for less.

So to help the rest of us follow their green home-building adventures—and perhaps inspire some to follow in their path—they created a blog documenting the process in exhaustive detail. 301 Monroe, as the site is known, attempts to track the embodied energy expended by the construction and maintenance of the house, down to the kilowatt.

Frustrated with media reports that look only superficially at green home improvements, or focus exclusively on improvements that make relatively little difference like finishings, the Mohrs set out to determine just how energy-efficient their new home could be. They undertook this daunting task the only way they knew how—by tirelessly counting, measuring, and estimating every last bit of expended energy.

The results, while not entirely surprising, are compelling enough to convince the most steadfast of green building skeptics. As built, the Mohr home cost 151,355 kilowatt/hours (kWh) of embodied energy, which is the amount of energy expelled from the excavation, processing, transportation, and construction of all the materials used in the home. That is less than half the 365,687 kWh spent on the average U.S. home.

They were able to achieve such a drastic reduction in construction-based energy consumption by implementing a laundry list of sustainably grown and processed materials like high fly ash concrete, cellulose and strawbale insulation, bamboo flooring, and locally-sourced stone.

The Mohrs also calculated that the new home uses only 7,149 kWh of energy per year, compared to 32,864 for the typical home. Contributing to these annual savings are a passive solar heating system, heat recovery ventilation, superb insulation, and earth tubes.

Of course, as the Mohrs are quick to admit, the construction of any new home is most often more energy-expensive than the retention of an old home. But the couple calculated that the new green home is so energy-efficient that it offsets the energy expended during construction in just 6 years. Renovating the existing house to a more environmentally-friendly standard would still need as long as 22 years to recoup the energy expended during new construction.

So the Mohrs did all they could to mitigate the environmental impacts of new construction. After having bought an existing midcentury ranch home with an expansive yard, the Mohrs deconstructed the original structure piece by piece to recycle the materials, and rolled up the old lawn to be replaced by a native garden, watered by a rainwater catchment system.

Today, the Mohrs happily inhabit their new home and are busy landscaping the yards. Their project was long and at times grueling, but as a result, the rest of us can benefit from the knowledge that green homes really do make sense.

For more on the Mohrs, check out Catherine’s great TED talk above.