Building Responsibly...
Before
there was the term 'green' we were practicing eco-friendly building practices
including buying smartly
to
reduce waste, using even the small cutoffs on the next project to limit
what goes to the recycling centers and
designing
decks to reflect the best usage of lumber sizes available. I never thought
of it as anything
other
than smart building. I took most of the leftovers and demo wood home to
use on projects for my house...
most
of which I would have never been able to afford before.
I
am currently working on a project at a friend's house where all the decking
is reclaimed from an
existing
deck that we took apart back in April. We've reused posts, beams, decking
and many
other
materials over the years. Soon I'll have pics up of his project. When he
stains the deck, you won't be able
to
tell the decking is over 10 years old! At home I have added over 550 sq.ft.
of decks and two pergolas....
all
using reclaimed lumber I got from client's tearoffs. I also saved a wood
carport from the dump
and
am rebuilding it at my house.
I
normally stored all re-usable lumber at my house up until the time I started
working with the wildlife center...
now
they get most of it...we have a lot to build out there! We've built a deer
enclosure, a racoon pen and started the
'chicken
town project' all using reclaimed lumber for most or all of the project.
It won't be long before we'll be
teaching
classes on how to build green for both home and wildlife rehab purposes.
Any
metal we come across in our demos gets recycled instead of dumped. We've
even hauled off tree cutoffs to the
wildlife
center to use for animal habitat enhancement. Bobcats and racoons [among
others] love limbs to climb on
while
in our care. This enhances their re-introduction to the wild and helps
keep them fit and trim.
As
some of you know, I drive a 1970 Chevy truck to work daily. While it has
been rebuilt the original motor isn't
the
most frugal with gas, so I have decided to add both fuel injection and
a four speed automatic to it this fall. I will
go
from 12mpg [not too bad for a work truck] to a 19mpg average! That rivals
the new trucks that can carry a full ton
like
mine and I get to skip the mammoth paperwork mess as well as the reduced
drain on resources
by
reusing an older vehicle rather than buying new. It also keeps the record
going...I've never bought a new truck or car!
The
last time I had a car loan was in 1982 for a used Buick Riviera. That's
a lot of paper saved.
We're
also trimming our hours back in the late afternoon so as not to use energy
during the peak times when it's
so
hot outside. We start a bit earlier than usual at 7-8am and work until
2-3pm. As a side benefit, we're not
out
in 105* heat for too long.
I
feel it's important for us to do our part to conserve our resources. One
of my hobbies involves making furniture
from
aromatic cedar. I found out recently that this is very green building.
Turns out that cedars drink more water from the water table than most other
trees on the planet...maybe that's why it's so nice to look at. Mature
cedars can drink up to 30 gallons a day and interecpt over 25% of the rainfall
they stand under. Just the 30 gallons a day adds up to 10,950 gallons
a
year...most households use less than 1200 gallons a year. We're going to
remove all the cedars from the wildlife center's
15
acres and make furniture out of them. Mike calculated the property has
513 cedars so we'll save the local water table
over
5.5 million gallons of water a year!
I
am also doing research on wind and solar power for the wildlife center
and our final house which we'll be building
soon.
Our goal is to build as green as possible with renewable energy and water
sources. The home will be a log structure
with
either 6" or 8" thick logs. Log homes offer double the energy savings of
a normal stick built home, especially the
newer
ones where the materials are the cheapest available and often the least
eco-friendly. The log home will be built
from
dead standing timber...much greener than using new growth and much more
stable over time.