Green Home Building
The Active Green Home
Image from hometips.com Sourced through Google Images
Many homes have a “green” label because they have many active components built into them. Climate control devices that can sense the need to lower blinds and shades, that monitor energy use, activity within the home, zoning of climate control and most commonly, solar arrays and their accompanying monitoring and reporting hardware.
All these things can create a comfortable home that has the potential to be more energy efficient and they can be FUN to have around. However, if basic passive design principles such as correct aspect for solar gain and natural climate control using cross ventilation, among others have not been addressed then the energy efficiency of the green home building project will be compromised. High tech is not always a bad thing however issues around sustainability do raise questions about how much ‘active’ you need in a green home building?
There are folks out there who say they won’t even consider installing solar panels to generate electricity because they consume more energy in their manufacture than they ever produce but they will fill their home with technological solutions to climate control and think nothing of it. Technology is brilliant and we need to apply it brilliantly – not carelessly. This is certainly an area of green home building and its definition, that needs enlightened thinking and can be both a mine field and a gold mine.