Build It Green - Indoor Air Quality

As discussed here, the 5 components of a green home are:
Energy Efficiency
Indoor Air Quality
Water Conservation
Resource Conservation
Community Design.

Our spring winds are here, brrrrrr, so our air quality outside is excellent, if bitter and blustery. Indoor air quality can be another story. Air inside homes can be 10 times more polluted than outdoor air. Commonly used adhesives, paints and finishes contain compounds that are known to cause cancer or trigger asthsma. Poor ventilation can also lead to excessive dust and mold, which also have adverse health affects.

Maineaudit.com

Indoor air quality upgrades include low-VOC building products, carpets and flooring, insulation, Energy Star bath fans, sealed front fireplaces, range hoods properly vented to outdoors, MERV 6+ filter, and tight airducts.

Poor ventilation in appliances such as furnaces, water heaters and clothes dryers, along with leaky ductwork in your heating and cooling system may cause "backdrafting". This is where gases are drawn back in to the living area, from the interstitial places in the building, rather than to the outdoors. Outdoor air is of much higher quality than the air from inside the walls, so getting your ductwork up to snuff can really make a difference in indoor air quality.

ACDOC

Making these improvements to your home will improve your quality of life and protect your family's health, as well as add value to your home should you decide to sell. If you are buying, you can keep an eye out for these features, or consider an energy efficient mortgage to get these upgrades completed when you purchase.

Warren Hellman's Farewell and Microclimate

Yesterdays miraculous beauty out at the beach for Warren Hellmans Memorial concert was such a gift. So many transcendent moments.  Not least among the gifts was the microclimate I was blessed to share with friends at the Banjo Stage, which had its back to the wind.

Funcheap

I'm such a microclimate nerd that I found a perfect lessons on the basics of golden gate microclimate at a beautiful memorial event (please forgive me Warren).

Wikipedia

Cold NW Wind, less beastly then the day before, nevertheless slowly built throughout the day. Our location was in the lee of the sturdy tent that was the Banjo Stage, just to the south of its shadow, and therefore with my back bathed in sun, and my face sheltered from the wind. In the Brant Ward photo below our spot was between the stage and the sound board.

The Chronicle

A visit to the banners, (along the fence at the end of Golden Gate Park) with all the pictures of Warren and his life, had me putting my jacket and scarf back on. Then taking them off again when back to our spot in the warm lee of the tent, no doubt annoying my friends with my repeated glee about our locations microclimate.

Warrens Banners

Microclimate really is micro. It is true that it is generally warmer on the east side (in the lee) of Mt. Tam and Twin and other peaks, but within each neighborhood, each block, each property, even each house there are warmer and cooler, sheltered and less sheltered spots. If you live here you know this already, if only unconsciously. When making the major investment of golden gate real estate, you'll be glad if you think about microclimate consciously before closing escrow.

Build It Green - Energy Efficiency

OK, here goes. My brief synopsis, one per post, of the 5 main components of a "green" home: Energy Efficiency, Indoor Air Quality, Water Conservation, Resource Conservation and Community Design.

Today's topic is Energy Efficiency, which the Build It Green folks call the "Cornerstone of Green"

RemodelingContractorTips.com

Energy efficient homes are less drafty, quieter and less expensive to heat then less efficient homes. They demand less from California's power grid and reduce your homes impact on climate change. They also "sell faster and fetch higher prices."

As the SF Department of the Environment points out, how we use energy is as important as how its produced and where it comes from (here are resources for energy efficiency in Marin). Improving your homes energy efficiency can be as simple as installation of weather stripping, upgrading insulation or installing a set back thermostat or a Nest thermostat. Conducting an energy assessment, or audit, is the best way to get the big picture, which can guide you to the most bang for your buck. 

Energy Detectives

You can do your energy assessment yourself, if you are inclined that way, or you can enlist the services of a professional, who has specialized equipment and can do a blower test and thermographic scan (aka infrared scan), which will give you a pretty picture of your home and where it is leaking heat (or where there is moisture, but that's for another post).  Energy Upgrade California is your "one stop shop for home improvement projects that lower your energy us, conserve water and natural resources and make your home healtier and more comfortable."  Plus they offer rebates (which vary by city/county) to encourage such fabulous behavior.

Build It Green

Last week I spent a couple of days at a Build It Green training, deepening my understanding of what it really means to call a building green. As many of you know, the biggest producer of greenhouse gases is not cars, but buildings. The good news is that there are many green buildings in San Francisco and Marin. Much of the new construction, especially in the city, is LEED Certified at various levels.

GreenDiary

While living walls and roof's and sleek post post modern design are pretty cool, and attract a lot of the green building press, there are also very effective, though less glamorous, ways to make a home greener. There are many small adjustments that can be made to existing buildings, at relatively low expense, to make them more comfortable, cheaper to operate, healthier to live in and better for the planet. Of course these improvements also add value to your home.

In the next few posts I'll elaborate on the 5 main components of a green home: Energy Efficiency, Indoor Air Quality, Water Conservation, Resource Conservation and Community Design.