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November 23, 2008
Great article on Green Building
http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-007-prioritizing-green2014it-s-the-energy-stupid/?full_view=1
Comments
aahhhh! What a breath of fresh air.
Posted by: pig three at November 24, 2008 6:49 AM
No one would deny that green building is in its infancy and there is still a lot to learn and mistakes to be made but this article has so many flaws I wouldn't even know where to begin.
Posted by: Left Hook at November 24, 2008 6:16 PM
Really?
I'm not even remotely qualified to talk intelligently about green building...designing green hydronic heating systems, yeah, but that's where my expertise ends.
I do know however, that this text is being taken very seriously by the engineering community and the author is being asked to lecture at many schools and trade conferences.
Aynway, it's interesting.
Posted by: Master Plvmber at November 24, 2008 6:34 PM
I'd have to read that article more carefully, but first impressions are that there's a level of self-serving there, which is probably what the author intended (I'm very critical) and has gotten him his speechifying gigs.
Green roofs are not the dilettantish effort he portrays. While it is true that the insulative effects of a green roof is achievable by other means, typically a green roof is less expensive and looks good (how do you quantify that?) A mature g. roof is not as water-needy as he portrays. Otoh, I agree that the jury may still be out on the long-term viability of green roofs. What the author does do, however, is cherry-pick a bad example for our reading pleasure (see- it doesn't work.)
He's right in that the LEED standards (I'm no fan of them) cause one to build for the points (like teachers teaching to the test); but that may be inevitable whenever you try to beauracratively quantify everything to the last point (pun intended.) What is the alternative? How do you reward the good stuff without documenting and quantifying?
The "points for durability" that he derides are much more complex than "you get points if the building does not fall down.") Too complex to go into, but an example of...what...is it yellow journalism (shades of Palin)?
"Show me a building that meets code and the standard of care [what exactly is that?
and saves energy and I will show you a green building." Rubbish. Good sound bite (see what I mean about setting himself up for paid speeches?) That is NOT a green building, or else every f*)ing building ever built is close to or is green. Which makes the term meaningless. Meeting code is a minimum, not something to be lauded.
He intersperses with comments like "don’t insulate steel stud cavities; insulate
them on the outside" true/not true (ie it's not obviously true, depends on the wall constuction.) But it sounds good.
I adid not spend the time to be able to comment on his extensicve disquition on medieval English means, LEED statistics and EUI but (being an engineer, green proto-consultant and general cynic) I am suspicious of the juxtapositioning of dense mathematical data with folksy advice.
So...does he have anything of worth to say: absolutely. Does he have a personal agenda to furhter himself? Also absolutely. And I cannot separate the two.
Otoh, I wish I could write like this to further my own sputtering second career.
Posted by: cmu at November 24, 2008 9:52 PM
The writing is so poor on this 'article' -- I would really doubt if the author should be considered an expert either. It does read like a seminar speech though so I wouldn't be surprised if he gave 'lectures'. Frankly, I was too bored to read much of it.
Posted by: townhouser at November 24, 2008 10:03 PM
MP,
Yes, its interesting, and talks about some serious problems, but unfortunately the author strikes such an arrogant and patronizing tone, as if green building were as simple as building blocks and most engineers and architects deserved to be treated like kindergartners. The reality is that building green is complicated and there are few simple answers.
Just to briefly touch on one of his first points, he says, "You want to save serious energy and serious money? Easy, use less glass."
Sounds simple enough and fairly easy to back up with R-value calculations. But there are all sorts of real world variables that should be considered which he never mentions. Is his hypothetical building is in a cold or a warm climate? Or what part of the world and how many hours of sunlight there is, and what direction the sunlight is coming from in the summer and winter, which are all important considerations when deciding how many windows to have, and where they should be placed. He never talks about the health benefits of having more sunlight in the building or that you will also save quite a bit of energy from not having to turn on your lights during the day time.
Building green is a complicated subject and the deserves to be treated as such. Here's a another excerpt from his paper, "If you don’t build stupid materials into the building, don’t do stupid things in the building and don’t connect the interior to exterior via the parking garage, 62 works very well." I'm sorry, I just don't find this to be effective writing or an effective way to convince your reader.
Posted by: Left Hook at November 24, 2008 11:50 PM
OK, but maybe he's better-trained as an engineer than as a writer.
I take his point to be consistent with a belief of my own: Let's not all drink the Green Cool-Aid just yet.
This is something I try to get across to everyone who calls me to install a radiant floor heating system and has unrealistic expectations about performance from such systems.
Radiant heat works best with masonry construction. We don't do that here.
So the green building methods being applied in, say, Switzerland, aren't giving us the same result in Brooklyn.
I think we can all agree that there is no cookie-cutter formula to designing efficiency.
Thanks for your comments.
Posted by: Master Plvmber at November 25, 2008 7:57 AM
You beat me to it MP. Engineering and arcitecture are broad fields. Just because someone has a degree does not guarentee they are good at what they do. Everone skews their beliefs to support their agenda. As the saying goes, those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach....or write a book about it. Green cool aide! LOL!
Posted by: pig three at November 25, 2008 9:11 AM
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