The U.S. Green Building Council, Energy Upgrade CA and Leadership Hermosa Beach have asked us to give a series of construction tours on February 11th. The tours will showcase the innovative technologies that make the Green Idea House net zero energy, zero carbon and responsive to the environment in terms
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It is not nearly done; but what do you think?
In addition to allowing us to be a case study for their ThermalCore product (which should cut our heating and cooling needs significantly), National Gypsum did something simple, yet revolutionary this week.
Hanging drywall inevitably leads to a giant pile of scrap drywall. Normally that scrap goes into the landfill where
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Many thanks to Gary Klein for sharing his genius with us yesterday. In two hours Gary took us through all the water related systems that are so crucial for us in hitting our net zero energy goals.
Gary is great at debunking myths about things like tankless water heaters and solar
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Now that he is back from Japan, Robert hopes to get caught up on his postings! The first is a video clip taken from the November City Council meeting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQqizZ02Vik
GIH updates to the City Council include:
Steel vs. Wood
Certified vs Non-certified wood
Low V.O.C. vs. Low Toxicity
Reuse vs New
View vs. Solar Panels
As part of his regular day job, Robert is honored to be invited to Japan next week to work with the Rotary Peace Fellows on leadership and strategy for their master’s level studies. It will be hard to be away from the GIH project for the week; but versus war,
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GIH Featured in Merlex Blog Spot
We are fortunate to have many bright, talented people supporting our project. Interestingly, they tend to know one another. Wes Harding from Harding Construction recently, introduced us to Nick Brown, the President of Merlex Stucco.
Nick came for a tour, instantly got the project and wanted
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On Wednesday, a video production crew from Ogilvy Advertising came to interview us re our choice to use SolarWorld PV panels on the GIH. Their Marketing Manager, Minnie Dimesa and the Ogilvy team made the whole thing fun. We look forward to seeing what they make of it!
Over the weekend Cater and Robert finished up the flashing that was needed as a result of the footings being poured too low into the ground in 1959 (see Foundational Problems). We started with Hohmann and Barnard’s environmentally friendly water based primer and mastic to ensure proper adhesion Then we
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Robert just returned from a week of lecturing at the international innovation school in Denmark, Kaos Pilot. The students and faculty there know of his interest in all things sustainable and Denmark is a haven for all things sustainable. Therefore, every time he goes to visit they take him on
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Amber Keenoy, the highly respected green building consultant and estimator very kindly mentioned the Green Idea House in an excellent article that is part of her weekly series: http://gogreenamericatv.com/global-green-sustainable-buildings/
We just sent the following letter to City Council and Staff to encourage them to vote for an item on tonight’s agenda that will support more waste diversion from the landfill.
Mr. Mayor City Council Members and Staff,
Thank you all for your continued support of our Green Idea
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This weekend we took the redwood ship lap we got on our journey to The Reuse People Store and started the install. Monica and Carter fit the pieces on the roof like a puzzle and what we found was incredible. We thought it would look nice – what we didn’t
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Some of you may have noticed us driving a funny little car lately (see photo). It is a fully electric local use vehicle (LUV) and was lent to us by one of our partners, the South Bay Environmental Services Center. You can find out more about the benefits of these
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Picked up a huge load of scrap lumber from The Reuse People store in Pacoima yesterday. Our friends Arthur, Shannon and Louis hooked us up with some redwood shiplap that will replace pine roofing that was destroyed by termites.
Matt Megill, a student from LACCD joined us on the adventure
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Watching Bill McDonough’s expanded version of his TED talk at the Dwell conference Friday night was extraordinary. He is one of the key sources of inspiration for the Green Idea House.
Ed took the stage Sunday afternoon with a vigor and clarity that was masked in the nature of his “living
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We really appreciated the opportunity to be in the Water and Energy Expo in the morning and on the EPN Green and Solar house tour circuit in the afternoon.
We were impressed by the interested and engaged group that showed up. Thanks to all our friends (old and new) that
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Arthur Renauld, Regional Manager for The Reuse People visited the Green Idea House a couple of months ago and saw the Youthbuild crew hard at work. Arthur was so impressed that he connected them with the ReUse Haus project for AltBuild. As a result our friend Wes Harding hired
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Unfortunately, one of the people in the neighborhood (you know who you are) is complaining to the city about our lumber pile. Therefore we have to get a dumpster out to the site in the next week. So, if you need any of the above for projects from furniture to
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Congratulations, Hermosa Beach
You are Southern California’s Greenest City this Earth Month!
Hermosa Beach, led by Mayor Peter Tucker, has won the title of Southern California’s greenest city for Earth Month. Hermosa Beach fended off strong challenges from Redondo Beach, Gardena, Long Beach, Villa Park, Agoura
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We hired a contractor to replace the rotted mudsills and rim joists (see Foundational Problems). The contractor normally uses green (in color) pressure treated lumber for that application. Unfortunately, the green stuff contains arsenic and chromium that gets airborne when cut or drilled and can also leach into your soil
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The video clip is taken from the April 26th Hermosa Beach City Council meeting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sswh242BWTQ
Also, We’ve attached (SBESC Letter) a very kind letter from Jacki and Marilyn at the South bay Environmental Savings Center thanking us for speaking at the South Bay Cities Council of Governments meeting on
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We will be briefing the Hermosa Beach City Council at their meeting at 7pm tonight!
Eric Michael Stitt very kindly marked our first big milestone: Owners save 97.5 percent of razed home
A grandmotherly woman named Grace contacted us about the free clean sandy soil we advertized in the local press. She came with her contractor and a pickup truck and took four giant loads of dirt off our hands.
Her city was making her take out some concrete and replace it with
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The South Bay Environmental Services Center asked us to speak at the quarterly South Bay Cities Green Task Force Meeting to share information about our 97.5% landfill diversion milestone. We will be complementing Lisa Coppedge’s presentation on Grades of Green’s incredible efforts to reduce trash and how that translates into
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Lucas’ words were ringing in my ears as the second cement truck finished unloading. When asked what materials his Danish eco village tries to avoid, the number one item is poured concrete because of it’s high embodied energy and the fact that you can’t really recycle it. Discarded concrete just
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As the end of their useful life, most buildings in our area get demolished with a bulldozer and get scraped into a dumpster. We certainly understand the logic. It is currently cheaper and easier to do it that way.
Reuse and recycling is hard work. Almost every architect and contractor we
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Moving is never easy and usually not green (e.g. cardboard boxes, diesel trucks…). Thankfully we found some very good local companies with affordable products and services that are environmentally friendly – and made the process easier.
Rent a Green Box reinvented how we loaded up our stuff with recycled and recyclable
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I am honored to be a lecturer at an innovation school in Denmark. The school, interestingly called KaosPilot, is doing amazing things in the world and is at the cutting edge of social and business innovation.
Half way through my week long series of lectures, one of their former students, Lukas
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