Our green education

After looking at the various houses and a lot of reading, what "green" started to mean to us was 1) the opportunity to build an efficient house, in terms of heating and cooling, thus making a green contribution, and 2) to also select other products and materials that are appropriately green.

The efficient aspect was easy, starting with the use of tankless water heaters and radiant floor heating. Optimization of natural cooling opportunities through window selection and placement was another obvious aspect. Next was achieving efficient heating and cooling through solar-generated electricity and solar-heated water, both of which we had seen in some houses. Given our site, solar electricity quickly emerged as a fairly obvious choice, particularly as our long term plans for this home allow return-on-investment models with longer periods.

An inevitable question with such equipment is where it will be placed, as we do not want our home to have "racks" and other hardware projecting above those flat and/or slightly sloping roofs. Fortunately, we learned that for our site's solar orientation the solar panels can be placed almost flat with only a 5% reduction in efficiency.

As to the selection of other products and materials that are green, our architect has experience in these areas, plus our reading and research continues.