Over the last few years, we've been having moisture problems in our house. Finally, we figured out the root cause and discovered we needed serious renovations to both repair the damage and eliminate the underlying cause.
Since such extensive work had to be done, my husband and I decided this was an opportunity to do all we could to make our house as "green" as possible. Our goals were to recycle materials we needed to dispose of, use reclaimed material whenever we could, and make our house as energy efficient as possible.
Using reclaimed/recycled material has been more of a chore than I'd expected! Finding green materials isn't always easy. They aren't at your neighborhood hardware store. You have to find them and order them; they take several weeks to arrive. We're using "reclaimed" wood for window frames and some of the siding. The window frames are being made from wood from red wine barrels. For the siding, we're using wood from used olive barrels from the 1930's. It's redwood, but it has a charcoal color it picks up from the olives.
Our hot water heating is being converted to solar. We're putting on a new roof that's a light color that reflects sunlight, so it has a good energy star rating. Sometimes we've found that we can't be 100% green. For example, we needed to add insulation. We'd planned to use recycled jeans, but the space we had available was too narrow for that material, so we had to go with something else. We did make sure that we didn't use material with formaldehyde, fiberglass, or other bad stuff. So, while, not 100% green, it's pretty good.
We found an organization that would come to our house and sort through everything that was torn off, including the existing siding, and recycle as much as possible rather than dump it all in a landfill. They did a tremendous job!
Ken Wilson (the architect who was awarded the Jhane Barnes Environmental Ambassador award this year) reminded me that the energy efficiency goal is the most critical long-term. So, even though we couldn't use 100% green insulation, it was still critically important to add insulation. And, while I like that we can use reclaimed materials and recycle old material, the true issue, for global warming, is to reduce household energy consumption. I'm pleased, as the work progresses, that we've been able to do our small part for energy conservation and the environment.
We're continuing to live in the house as this work is done. All those horror stories you've heard about living in your house while it's being renovated? True, all true! Horribly, ghastly true! But the parts that are getting finished up look perfect, so I know we're going to be happy with it when it's all done.
