[Greenbuilding] what makes it green? [WAS: Bidirectional breathing walls]

[Don Jennings]

Rob,

So, Nick Pine obviously believes low energy usage is the criteria for
green building. What are your underlying values for what makes a green
building? As one who is in a position to incorporate ideas as we are
currently in the early planning stages of our home, which, if any, of
Nick's ideas merit consideration?

Take care,
Don

On 2/14/09, Nick Pine <nick at early.com> wrote:
> RT writes:
>
>>>... more often than not, the "math" (or more accuratelty the BASIC
>>>gibberish) obfuscates the *lack* of detail in what I would call
>>>amateur speculation... the example of breathing through a scarf in
>>>cold weather was mentioned as proof for the capacity for heat recovery
>>>from moisture "transpired" through the envelope.
>
> BTW, my mathematical gibberish (vs your verbal gibberish :-) says the
> scarf is a much more difficult situation, with exhaled 98 F air near
> 100% RH with Pa = e^(17.863-9621/(460+98)) = 1.86 "Hg
> (Clausius-Clapeyron gibberish :-) and humidity ratio wi =
> 0.62198/(29.921/Pa-1) = 0.04 pounds of water per pound of dry air, vs 70
> F house air at 50% RH with Pa = 0.5e^(17.863-9621/(460+70)) = 0.374 "Hg
> and wi = 0.0079. The scarf has 17X Phila's wo = 0.0025 average January
> outdoor humidity ratio, vs 3X more for the house.
>
> Another quote:
>
>   My message to architects and engineers is: Look at the whole picture.
>   In the trade press recently, there was an article hailing a custom,
>   9,000-square-foot, architect-designed house as the latest in
>   environmentally responsible design. Its principal claim to fame
>   seemed to be the use of natural, nontoxic finishes on the woodwork.
>   In the rush to commercialize "Green Architecture," no one noticed
>   that this house consumes more energy than a small New England town.
>
>   If your goal is trying to build an environmentally responsible
> building,
>   you're missing the whole point if you get all lathered up over a
>   nonvolatile natural finish on the handrails, while you're connected
>   to a plutonium generator down the road. It's the same "out of site,
>   out of mind" again, with a new face on it. "I'm doing all I can for
>   the environment, my architect specified beeswax on my new woodwork--
>   someone else will just have to figure out what we're going to do
>   with all this radioactive waste"... and acid rain and oil spills and
>   global warming and ozone depletion and unhealthy air quality and...
>
>   You hear a lot about sustainability these days. I've been at this
>   since 1973, long enough to be certain that, without addressing the
>   energy issues, you're in the weeds. All the fuss over "my milk-based
>   paints transported in from Europe" is just a myopic distraction from
>   the issues that really matter on a global scale. True, natural-based
>   finishes are desirable, but they fall far short of the answer.
>   Establishing an energy infrastructure based on renewable resources
>   is a necessary and fundamental precondition to establishing a
>   sustainable society or to achieving sustainability at any scale.
>   If you are not addressing the energy issues, don't even pretend
>   that your building is environmentally responsible.
>
>        Architect Steven Strong in
>        The New Independent Home by Michael Potts
>        Chelsea Green, 1999
>
> Set's move on. Forget direct gain, aka direct loss. Forget heat pumps
> with their COP of 3 and hideously-expensive evacuated tubes.
>
> Nick
>
>
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