JAN 29

Let's get serious people. You can't live a green lifestyle in an 8,000 square foot home. Even if it's entirely powered by solar panels, the manufacturing footprint alone is going to put you head and shoulders above the average American.

For a long time, home builders faced the same problem as Detroit. They thought that smaller meant cheaper. So if you wanted a house with ultra-efficient windows and solar panels, then you were looking at a mansion. If you wanted a smaller home, with less air to heat, then you were stuck with buying either a 50 year-old home, or a home that was built for a low price point.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with a man who's trying to change all that. Shawn Harvey of Green Castle has designed three low-footprint, small but beautiful homes for people who want to live a nice life without owning the landscape.

The houses are built with super-insulating filled concrete and incorporate a 3000 watt solar system into each of the homes. All of the lighting throughout the house is LED, meaning it will be ultra-efficient from day one with no investment for the buyer.

Of course, for a small house, they come with an unusually large price tag, about $280,000 not including land. But it's going to make you a heck of a lot greener than a Prius ever will.

Comments (8)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

breakthrough
written by mike, January 30, 2009

It only makes sense. I life in a house about that big and it had enough room. But please don't call it a breakthrough.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Hong Kong
written by Lora, January 30, 2009

Actually, if you extrapolate that sentiment to cities, it turns out that Hong Kong is one of the most energy-efficient cities in the world. High density cities = smaller = better (=higher investment costs due to more complicated building process). It's just that everything is bigger in the US :)...

• 
• +0
• 
• 

oops
written by Lora, January 30, 2009

Let me clarify the dig at the US: I'm Dutch, we have 16 million people living on a piece of land that's about twice the size of Vermont. Our perception of [housing] size and travel times is very different from the US: for us a freestanding house with a garden is a luxury for the upper class or those in rural areas, and an hours travel is long. Our houses aren't really that "green" I think, but there has been some progress. I just found out that the municipality of Rotterdam is trying to make a "green" city on all fronts, to move away from the passive systems of green architecture (insulation etc) to more active forms of energy production (solar panels etc). They look at this at the scale of the city and the region, instead of a per-building individual choice.
Hmm... I got off track a bit, but my point was that there is a very important cultural factor to this too. And practical: the US is just plain big :). But there's no practical reason not to build high-density cities in the US, NYC proves that :)

• 
• +1
• 
• 

...
written by MD, January 30, 2009

Lora, high density cities are a bane on humanity...

I have a simple experiment for you, stick as many rats as you can in a 1 square meter box, eventually the rats turn on each other... Same idea as a super high density city I'm afraid.

I live rural and our house is only 1300 sq feet. It was originally built in 1893, so it could use a big dose of greening up!

• 
• +1
• 
• 

Pretty tiny
written by Doc Rings, January 30, 2009

With a little re-work, they could at least make these three bedrooms. At this point, they are only suitable for young families with zero/one children, or empty nesters. This is great, but they need a third floorplan with about 1600 sf and three bedrooms.
I love the concept, though! They just need a slightly bigger, more marketable floorplan selection.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by mike, January 30, 2009

I don't know what the most desirable home size may be. But a small study showed the most desirable car with all the features consumers may want would be the size of a small bus, have the speed of a Viper, handle like a BMW and look like a corvette. Oh, it it also needs to get Prius milage and cost no more than a Kia.......

• 
• +0
• 
• 

There are more efficient technologies th
written by Mehul Kamdar, February 01, 2009

This is not to knock the excellent effort being put out by green Castle but there are more efficient technologies available in the USA including from www.thermasave.us which offer as good insulation as insulated concrete form construction and which are also a lot cheaper. The UN selected Thermasave's tech for building homes in Afghanistan where it can get very cold up in the mountains and where money was a major issue. The fact that the Thermasave method is also a very strong one for homes in a heavily earthquake and strong wind prone area helped the UN make its choice. DO check out this much cheaper alternative if you wish to.

BTW I have nothing to do with Thermasave other than having talked to its founder Hoot HAddock some time ago to ask about his building tech. I can;t think of a nicer person to talk to if you guys want to get more information.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by Steve Bergman, February 11, 2009

Lora, high density cities are a bane on humanity... I have a simple experiment for you, stick as many rats as you can in a 1 square meter box, eventually the rats turn on each other... Same idea as a super high density city I'm afraid.

I have a simple experiment for you. Travel to the Netherlands. I live in the American mid-west, "The Heartland", where we have tremendous elbow room and are supposed to be so friendly. The Dutch, with all their population density, have us beat hands down.

But it is probably true that Americans would act like rats. I mean, we do that anyway don't we?

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment