Practical idea exchange about sustainable building development and living
From the category archives:
The content is not terrible, the presentation, well, yeah…
Kind of tool time-ish, but props for effort and message. I myself hate plastics in any form. Plastic wood substitutes & decking is something I think is kinda souless. But decks take much wood, and the pasltic can be recycled content, so there is a case to be made. The price point can be good as well.
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Foundations are not like kitchens. People don’t leave a house that is for sale saying “Wow, did you see that foundation, how cool was that!” It is the quiet things however, that can have a major impact. The new concrete on either side of the embedded beam is fly ash concrete. Fly ash is a byproduct of coal fired power plants. It is used to replace some of the cement in concrete.
“For every ton of cement manufactured, about 6.5 million BTUs of energy are consumed…(and) about one ton of carbon dioxide is released. Replacing that ton of cement with fly ash would save enough electricity to power the average American home for 24 days, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions equal to two months use of an automobile.” (source?)
“Experts estimate that cement production contributes to about 7% of carbon dioxide emissions from human sources. If all the fly ash generated each year were used in producing concrete, the reduction of carbon dioxide released because of decreased cement production would be equivalent to eliminating 25 percent of the world’s vehicles” (source)>
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“The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international organization that brings people together to find solutions which promote responsible stewardship of the world’s forests.”
The FSC follows wood from the forest to the mill to the dealer. When you use FSC wood you can be assured that no ecosystems were wiped out making that 2X4.
Another type of FSC Certified product: reclaimed wood. This is tropical hardwood packing crate material used in global industrial shipping that has been re-milled by TerraMai. Wood that would have previously been thrown out has many uses. In our case, we used it to build a beautiful deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Holding up the roof is a 16 inch think 20 foot long Paralam Beam.It is and engineered piece of wood – a lot of smaller diameter strips of wood mashed together with glue to make one giant, ultra strong beam. There are many benefits to using one of these: reducing demand for big solid beams decreases the pressure to cut down old growth forests; Engineered lumber uses wood fiber more efficiently than conventional lumber; and it prevents big beautiful old growth trees from being chopped down.
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An insulations is an insulating resistance to heat transfer is what is called its R-Factor. The thicker the insulation, the higher the R-Factor, the more energy efficient the application. Not the most interesting part of a remodel. But a major factor in consuming less energy, saving money and soundproofing. In the walls we chose blown cellulose and shredded phone books. Blown cellulose is not right for every application, so in addition to that we also used recycled cotton (Blue Jeans). This gave us an R-Factor of ? In the Ceilings we utilized blown foam. It is rigid and fills every nook and cranny. It has an R-Factor approaching 40 and is fire resistant.
Even in relatively mild climates like ours, in San Francisco, a properly insulated home can have a massive impact on efficiency. Less energy to hear means less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced. If an average home pumps out 12-15 tons of CO2 per year, good insulation can lop 2-4 tons off that. If the house gains another 20 years of life from this remodel, that means 40 tons at a minimum not shot into the air.
I expect this home to love much more than 20 years and the total carbon savings to be more then 2 tons per year.
One huge advantage of blown cellulose, shredded phone books and recycled cotton products is that they contain no Formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is used in most modern insulation and it can leech into the air and has the potential to make you and your kids sick. It is one of the main pollutants that made the survivors of Hurricane Katrina sick after they were relocated to cheap, poorly build trailers produced from formaldehyde-based products.
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