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"Morbidly Obese McMansions"

This country is going through a significant change. We are a new nation still, one of the newest in the world, always changing, yet our ideas of development have remained the same. The land of opportunity- where wealth and prosperity could be identified easily by our possessions. Bigger possessions = bigger bank accounts. Life revolves around the marketplace and the choices of what you buy. We created a system of credit where naive consumers could only loose - it was mostly by luck that a few purchases were worth the same by the time they had been "paid off". I think we just didn't want anyone to have it too rough. Funds available all the time and a constant barrage of marketing resulted in a population always getting what they "want". Credit became the largest business in the country and it took us a generation or two to figure out that it wasn't usually helping us.
Not too long ago, people were buying huge houses not because they needed them - but because they could. Now people are buying a house as a suitable place to live, not a trophy. A similar event occurred about 100 years ago when smaller bungalows replaced the enormous Victorian-style homes of the time. It's true we can't keep building McMansions; we'll run out of space and materials before we run out of people.

Steady as we go....

Bamboo and "Green Buildings"

I think most people know Bamboo as a great renewable, eco-friendly building material. It grows fast, has nice strong fibers, it is lightweight, easy to harvest, the list goes on.... Plus, it looks good.

Bamboo doesn't grow where I live, not even possible - so we use logs. Comparing Bamboo to Lodgepole Pine is a bit like apples to oranges, but I would like to see them co-exist in a building as much as possible. I believe the two materials can work well together. Unfortunately, there are few climates where they both grow side by side, so creating a building of locally harvested materials is difficult.

Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world. It comes in several varieties, and they aren't all suitable for building. There are places where Bamboo grows up to four feet per day - that's amazing! On average, Bamboo can be harvested as a building material every seven years and will produce twenty times more material per acre than hardwoods. I like it.

I believe we can save a lot of energy if we use materials that require less processing. For example, plywood (or OSB) can be made from just about any kind of wood. Simply mix your wood chips with a bunch of formaldehyde and run it through the press and you have a nice, flat, sheet of wood to work with - after a lot of processing. There seems to always be an alternative to using materials that were manufactured or "processed" like this - you just have to look around. Also, these materials that make life easier, will shorten your life - and the lives of others. OSB (oriented strand board) is found in nearly every house in America. 3 ingredients: Wood (the dust of which is a known carcinogen), Formaldehyde (may cause reproductive harm and cancer, indoor air pollutant), Paraffin Wax (basically turns your house into a huge match, extremely flammable).

Another one I'm not so keen on are SIP's. A panel made from OSB and Styrofoam. Yes, it will give you some energy-tax credit, but it sure won't make the air in your house better. There will be more on this later...

I have been seeing a lot of claims to "Green Building" on the Internet. It happens locally too, with contractors advertising as a "Green Builder". OK, this is a HUGE topic that I will only make a few points about.

How are people saying a building is "Green" when it is made from manufactured materials? Just because you put it together in a shop and hauled it to the job site and bolted it together in 10 hours doesn't make it better for the environment. You know who you are. I think people are using this term a little too loosely. Does Green Building = Natural materials? Well, no it doesn't but should it? Obviously, this term is interpreted in many ways. By most definitions a "Green Building" must avoid environmental degradation by using renewable resources. Green Building means using less energy, keeping building occupants healthy, and having less impact on the earth.

be smart, join the US Green Building Council: http://www.usgbc.org/

Natural Building is a philosophy I like a lot too. Build a structure using materials that can be recycled, composted, or used as fuel. Combine this with Green Building practices, build things stronger than they need to be, think about the future, life is good...

Waste not want not.

What if someone has to tear this house down in a hundred years because it wasn't maintained or built properly? Where does all the drywall and plywood go? How much can ever be re-used?

OK. OK. I know that we never build with the intentions of ever destroying the structure, but that's a reality now. Materials only last so long, tastes change, needs change, and eventually the dirt it's sitting on will be worth more than the shabby structure.

Where I live, there isn't a junk-yard for about a hundred miles; so, if you have an old car or boat or camper you don't want anymore - it is now very inconvenient to get rid of. Therefore, people tend to take care of what they have - handing it down instead of throwing it away.

Money for nothin'

What if someday there was no place to take a dumpster full of old building materials? I bet one of those 10,000 square foot trophy homes in Plano, Texas would take up quite a bit of space in the landfill if it had to come down (or fell down). Right now it is much too easy to haul our waste to a hole in the ground and say goodbye to it "forever". When a house is being built, there is usually a dumpster on site to haul away all of the scrap pieces of drywall and plywood, bits of 2x4's and empty buckets of paint. The bigger the house, the more waste.

Maybe we shouldn't build so big, and maybe we shouldn't use materials that will never return to the earth. Fiberglass insulation and spray foam work great, but they are far from bio-degradable.

Jay Schafer's Tumbleweed Houses are about as big as my kitchen, yet have been so completely planned and designed that they now define space efficiency in a home. Structured around the premise that "less is more", building a Tumbleweed House probably creates about one trash bag full of waste while the Plano trophy home created multiple dumpsters full.

Thermal Value and Materials

Last night I was talking with Ron Brummond about the thermal efficiency of a log home. He asked how it compared to a "regular" house and I couldn't remember any exact R-value numbers to give him but I told him it was very comparable to a conventionally framed home - only different. Alas, here's the data:
A material's R-value (factor) is it's ability to conduct heat (allow heat to pass through). So, yes, wood has a lower R-value than fiberglass insulation (around 1.8-2.0 per inch for wood, 3.3 per inch for fiberglass). Wood resists less heat than fiberglass. But, there's another issue when talking about thermal value (or efficiency).
A material's thermal mass potential must be considered. That is it's ability to trap and store heat. A material with a larger mass (such as logs) will have a larger heat storage value, therefore having a much slower rate of temperature change throughout the material. A log wall will have the ability to store heat to warm a house, not just create a barrier to the outdoors.
Materials
There are at least 9 layers in a conventionally framed wall. From the exterior siding to the interior drywall, each material is individually added to the building - fastened with a specific fastener, or applied with specific tool. Each comes with its own instructions and is manufactured and shipped from a different place on earth. Every different layer holds a value based on the distance it travelled, how much packaging it required and how much handling it took to reach its destination. I think that if a person can learn to frame, sheet, mud and paint a wall - they can learn to scribe-fit two logs together. Why so many layers?
Next we'll talk about building waste....

Everyone has a different idea of what type of house they would like to live in. Ideas develop from childhood through teen-age until having a home of ones own is necessary. It is then that the memories of past dwellings are analyzed and computed - thus forming an idea of their perfect home. What will my perfect home need to be? This is an equation with many variables, where compromise and balance attain the best result. These are some of the ideas I have:

Space

I don't need extra bedrooms, or huge ones when their purpose is for sleeping. I like to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and people will congregate there. Bathrooms see the least amount of visitation, so they are allotted the least amount of space. I believe it is more practical to occupy a house that fits than to live in an over-sized home - hoping to fill it some day. Build a house that has enough space, but know you can always add to that space if necessary. Interior space can be matched to fit exterior space. I try to keep the houses' footprint to a minimum. Our dwelling is not only the four walls surrounding us but the spot on earth where we have built them. So, why fill the beautiful piece of land we call our own with a building who's main purpose is shelter? Luckily, there are options for more space - we can build up or down, into the side of a mountain or simply re-evaluate the use of what space we already have.

Efficiency

A properly designed house will utilize what area is allowed to satisfy its occupants needs. The location of rooms, sizes of each, heating and cooling systems, plumbing and electrical systems and materials used to construct all add to a homes efficiency. I like to have bedrooms tucked away, with bathrooms separating them from living space. A more central bathroom is nicer when having guests, being more accessible in an unfamiliar place. If bathrooms and kitchen can share a common wall, plumbing can be drastically simplified - reducing building costs and creating efficiency at the same time. Heating and cooling of a house is much simpler with a modest living space. A minimal amount of rooms, situated closer together, require less energy to move hot or cold air throughout. I have found that having less electricity available ultimately results in less electricity being used. How many lights does each room really need? If outlets are installed in every 4 feet of wall, chances are that something will be plugged into them. Window types and placement can substitute lights and fans just as non-electric devices can replace many household appliances. Less wiring equals less energy consumption equals less money.

Well, there will be much more philosophy later....