greenUPGRADER » Architecture

Eco-Friendly Roof Options

Becky Striepe — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:00:14 +0000

We knew when we bought this house back in 2006 that we'd eventually have to replace the roof. To be honest, we probably should have done it already, but it's getting to be pretty bad now. I'd really like to look at more eco-friendly options than asphalt roofing tiles, because asphalt is a petroleum product.

Since I've been digging up info about eco-friendly roof options, I thought I'd share what I found with you guys!

1. Green Roof

Unfortunately, I think a green roof is a little bit out of our price range. At $8-$25 per square foot, I don't think we can swing it. They're certainly lovely, though! Green roofs help combat the urban heat island effect and even help insulate your house, so you'll see lower energy bills. If I had the money, there's no question that I'd go this route!

2. Metal Roof

This one's definitely in the running! Metal roofs are very durable, which means less money on upkeep. Metal roofs can be pricier than asphalt tiles, around $3.50-$11 per square foot. The thing with metal roofs is that, like I said, they're durable.

My husband's main concern with a metal roof is noise when it rains. That's totally legit, so I did some research, and it sounds like newer metal roofs don't have this problem. Here's a homeowner talking about her metal roof on a forum:

I live in the rain capitol of the U.S....Seattle. I have cathedral ceilings, and a metal roof. It's a newer home and has cellulose roll insulation in the ceilings. I've noticed no difference in noise between this and the cedar shakes at my previous house. Maybe if you were living out in the boonies with a tin roof and no insulation you'd have more noise, but I think it's a non-issue in today's houses. And, from a maintenance standpoint, I'll never go back to a conventional roof.

I'm definitely going to try to get a metal roofing company to give us a quote!

3. Solar Shingles

This is another one that's out of our price range, but holy moly, would I love solar shingles! Unlike solar panels, these things blend right in with the rest of your roof. Green power AND avoiding those asphalt tiles?? Someday...

I couldn't find a square foot price, but it looks like Dow is selling special homes with solar shingles that start in the high $400s. A little inaccessible! But hopefully these will come down in price as they catch on.

4. Recycled Shingles

This is another one that's definitely on my list of possibilities. Recycled shingles cost around the same as a metal roof, and they come with a crazy 50 year warranty! Durability is definitely at the top of my wish list for a new roof. I can't really afford to do this again any time soon, and I think that the greenest thing that you can do is get something that's going to last rather than a product that's going to head to the landfill in just 5 or 10 years.

5. Slate Roof Tiles

Slate has a pretty low environmental impact and is incredibly durable. It looks like a slate roof costs between $8 and $11 per square foot (I used this handy online calculator to figure that out!). My big concern with slate is the weight. I don't want to have to redo our home's foundation because of heavy roofing tiles! I'm not sure that's even something we'd have to consider with a slate roof, but definitely worth asking a contractor.

Have any of you guys had an eco-friendly roof installed? I'd love to hear your experiences!

Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by David Paul Ohmer

3 Ways a Tiny House Can Help You Live Greener

Guest Contributor — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:00:08 +0000

by Adam Green

Would you move to a smaller house in the name of greener living? How about a 130 square foot house?

Ever since the New Yorker ran a spread on Jay Shafer's Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, a mainstream audience has had a sneak peak at what some critics might call a not-so-mainstream place to live – the tiny house.

Shafer's houses, which get as small as 99 square feet, are, as their creator proudly proclaims, "smaller than some people's closets."

Yet he's selling them – lots of them. And people are really living in them. There are some you can order for $54,000 or less, pre-assembled.

Since seeing that New Yorker article, I've been obsessing over tiny houses! Although I've neither lived in a tiny house nor even visited one, I can immediately identify several ways in which these unconventional homes are an environmentalist's dream come true. Here are three of them:

1. Less space means less stuff.

We've all heard of "reduce-reuse-recycle," but tiny houses take "reduce" to a whole new level.

In most of Shafer's houses, there's very little room for furniture. Interior photos of his 130 square foot model, the Fencl, show two small chairs, a simple love seat, and nothing more, except some space in the upstairs loft for a bed. Or maybe a just a mattress.

But do you really need more than two chairs and a love seat in your living room? Most people don't. And tiny houses are all about minimalism.

When you have less space to put things, you tend to purchase fewer of them. Living in a tiny house will almost certainly help you reduce your consumption of tangible goods.

2. Less space means less energy.

Shafer says he spends less than $170 per year heating his tiny house in Iowa. A tiny house-dweller in Olympia, Washington reportedly spends $5 heating hers.

Even if these figures are optimistic, it's easy to see how a tiny house could drastically decrease your energy consumption. And if you stick a small solar panel on the roof, you'll never worry about electricity again.

3. Composting toilets, window unit air conditioners...

The list goes on. Ok, actually it doesn't because there just aren't a lot of things you can add to a tiny house and have it still be "tiny."

But the appliances you can squeeze inside consume very few resources and are extremely inexpensive to operate. With the Fencl, you also get a mini-fridge, a two-burner stove, and a tiny water heater that lives below the kitchen sink.

And since the tiny house itself doesn't take up much space, its impact on any surrounding land is almost nonexistent.

Even if you never live in one of Shafer's tiny houses, their very existence offers an important lesson. Living in comfort doesn't always mean having lots of space – or even lots of stuff. Sticking with the essentials and questioning whether much else is really necessary not only makes life simpler. It's a whole lot easier on the planet, too.

Adam Green might not live in a tiny house (yet), but he's definitely a fan of thrift and simplicity. He contributed this post on behalf of Full Circle, an organic fruit and vegetable delivery service in Washington State.

Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by nicolas.boullosa

Slideshow: Green Roof Eye Candy

Becky Striepe — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:30:03 +0000

A green roof can help offset the urban heat island effect. In cities, all of that asphalt and those black roofs absorb the sun's heat, making urban areas even hotter than rural ones. By replacing a black roof with a green one, you can make your home more energy efficient while helping to regulate temperatures.

Not only are green roofs useful, they can be beautiful! Here are a few examples of green roofs that caught my eye.

Next>> Goats on the roof!

Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by LenkinDesign

Unused Rail Line Transformed to a Park in the Sky

Becky Striepe — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:00:18 +0000

New York's elevated High Line rail was abandoned, and the city was planning to tear it down. Robert Hammond had another idea.

Hammond teamed up with another resident, Joshua David, to save the High Line. On a trip to visit the line inspiration struck, and they decided to try to turn the tracks into a park instead. After some legal battles and a lot of community outreach, their dream is close to coming true. In this inspiring TED Talk, Hammond explains how this project got started and where it's going:

Hammond and Davis teamed up to form Friends of the High Line, and the project has already broken ground. Not only is the High Line park beautifying the area, it's going to create tax revenue, earning the city money instead of costing.

More on Urban Beautification from the Live Oak Network:

What Will Smart Homes Look Like In 2020?

Beth Buczynski — Tue, 31 May 2011 13:27:43 +0000

Everything has a computer these days, even simple household appliances. Some wonder whether our homes will soon become giant computerized environments as well.

In an era of technological innovation, we’re seeing more and more infiltration of high tech gadgets into the home. These new technologies promise to make our home lives easier, more comfortable, safer, more energy efficient, and even more fun.

Although it might feel like we're being taken over by Big Brother (don't worry, it's just Google), building more intelligent homes can actually help save energy and reduce environmental impact.

Instead of just being able to program your HVAC system or appliance to switch on and off at certain times, these systems may soon be able to sense human presence, and determined whether or not they need to be ready to serve.

The following infographic explores some of the potential technological possibilities we may see in our homes over the next decade.

Brought to you by The House Designers, offering a wide selection of quality house plans

Image Credit: Flickr - Howard Dickins

Building a School from Plastic Bottles

Becky Striepe — Wed, 04 May 2011 12:00:02 +0000

We've talked here before about the scourge of single-use plastic, so you can imagine how it warmed my heart to run across this video, where kids are taking plastic bottles and upcycling them into building materials:

1800 children in Guatemala collected 2.5 tons of trash and over 10,000 plastic bottles and used them to help build a school for themselves.

Laura Kutner was working with the Peace Corps in Grenados when the school principal there asked if she could help them finish building two classrooms. The rooms were framed out but had no walls. When she realized that her 600 mL bottle of Coke was the same width as the frame, inspiration struck.

With help from the kids and other members of the community, Kutner organized a building campaign. They stuffed the bottles full of inorganic trash and built themselves a school! Kutner described the process to the folks at Living on Earth:

We built four walls. It’s a very simple process. Essentially, you have your frame, and you start on one side of the frame, you have to lay out either…you know, you staple chicken wire to one side or what we did, because we used metal, was we tied with metal wire the chicken wire to one side first, and made it really, really tight.

And then you start on the inside and you are stacking the bottles against the first layer of chicken wire vertically and then horizontally, and then you’re slowly closing it over with another layer of chicken wire and then tying both layers of chicken wire together.

So you kind of encage the bottles. And then you put three layers of cement on both sides. After that, you can’t even tell that it was built out of bottles. It looks like it was built out of cement block.

The coolest part, after all of the waste they diverted from landfills, is that this structure is actually more earthquake-proof than cement, because the bottle walls have a bit of flexibility to them.

h/t: Miss Malaprop

Eco Lights from Discarded Christmas Trees

Becky Striepe — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:00:48 +0000

We talked last week about some cool DIY lighting projects, and I couldn't resist sharing these clever recycled lights made from discarded Christmas trees!

Et Al. Collaborative creates their fLume lamps using old Christmas trees, fallen tree limbs, and wood reclaimed from landscaping projects. They try to only minimally process the wood, so each lamp is one of a kind with shapes that vary quite a bit. The only change I'd make to green this project up even more is use a CFL or LED bulb instead of the incandescent in these photos.

The Brooklyn-based architectural design group has worked on other reclaimed pieces, like an artist's table from a reclaimed metal door and a wood pallet tower for the Brooklyn Utopias? exhibition.

Have you guys run across any other examples of DIY reclaimed lighting? I'd love to hear about them in the comments!