The growing popularity of the green movement here in America has brought the ideal of green building into the mainstream. Even with the housing shortage and mortgage issues that currently plague our country there are more commercial builders picking up green building, just as there are more individuals who want to start green building on their own. Green building is no longer about setting up a yurt on some open land, though that can still be the case, but green building today is more about developing entire communities from sustainable housing. Here we are going to take a look at what green building is and also provide you with links for further information should you choose that green building is right for your housing needs.
Green building is essentially about creating sustainable housing in the most environmentally friendly way possible. In the beginning of the green building movement, individuals took up adding materials to their existing housing to make it more sustainable. As the movement gained momentum more people began to create their own full home construction plans based off of the ideal of sustainable living. The 1970's really kicked off the ideals of green building when more of America's population were open to learning about our construction impact on the environment and by 1980 the eco-conscious population grew to such a degree that the The Sustainable Buildings Industry Council (SBIC) was founded. As time went on and more was learned about our environmental impact mainstream builders began to comply with the greener population to make their housing developments more in line with the green building movement.
Using Recycled Products
Let's take a look now at some basic green building principles. The first one we will cover is that of using wood in home construction. The usage of wood and wood frame construction in America alone, took off with the sub-division building after World War II. On a global scale, America began to use up to fifteen percent of the world's wood for basic construction and that percentage has only continued to grow along with our continued growth in population. So, the basis in using wood in green building is to use as little as possible and look to other structural sources to eliminate wood construction where other materials could be used. Those other structural sources have come from recycled tires and bottles, cord wood, straw bale, metal, adobe and other various clay supportable construction.
More Energy Efficient
The second green building ideal that we'll go over is that of energy consumption. In 1973 the AIA Committee on Energy began reporting information on energy usage in home construction and in conjunctuion with the SBIC and public pressure the United States Department of Energy was created in 1977. Green building was looked at as being the main source of trying to control America's energy consumption issues. One way to adress the energy issue is through Passive Solar construction which enables the home dweller to use their natural environment as their main electrical source, this cuts down on heating costs and overall electrical consumption as does using wind generated power.
More Water Efficient
The third ideal in green building that we are going to look at is that of water. In America, we waste more water in our homes than what is available from fresh water sources.The average non-green built home communities use enough water to fill a line of Olympic-size swimming pools reaching around the world every day which adds up to 300 billion gallons of water. In green building, every way in which water is used in the home is geared toward less overall water usage and more green homes are going a step further and incorporating what is known as grey water systems. Grey water is reusing the water you have already used in a home for other uses, such as kitchen sink run off water could be used in your clothes washer or even collected to keep your yard watered.
All in all green building here in America is becoming more acceptable and is quickly moving into being the building standard. In our next article on green building we'll take a closer look at the different forms green home construction by starting off with straw bale construction.
If you would like to learn more about how the AIA is working to make green building more mainstream you can visit their site: www.aia.org and you can learn more on a national environmental level by visiting the Department of Energy's home page: www.energy.gov