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What is green building?

Contrary to Kermit's assertion, it is easy to be green.  At least it is easy if you plan to be green.

Although it has been talked about for decades, green building is a relatively new approach to creating improved and more eco-friendly homes and buildings.  Due to the awareness being created about global warming and climate changes, the world is now embracing these green ideas.  Green is a color whose time has come!

Our homes are more than just a place to provide shelter from the storms; this is where we live, play, eat, entertain, sleep and raise our families. Creating an ecologically friendly environment isn't just good for the planet, it also provides enormous health, economic, social and esthetic benefits.

Go Green - Go Log!

Green building is an exhaustive topic encompassing everything from building materials, construction designs and practices to appliances and waste disposal.  For our purposes, we will primarily address green as it applies to log and timber homes. 

Planning to be green

Building green actually starts at the design phase of your eco-friendly home. As an example, positioning your home so that it makes the best use of the sun, window size and placement, ceiling heights, heating options, landscaping, lighting and your choice of stains and finishes all contribute to how green your home can be.

Using logs rather than commercial lumber reduces the amount of time, processing, and handling that is necessary with most stick built houses. Only the timber that is prime for building a home is harvested  so there's no waste of unwanted younger trees being unnecessarily cut.  This not only keeps cost down, but it also decreases transportation expenses for fuel and processing at a minimum. There's less expense all the way around.

The use of wood itself is a renewable resource.  As trees are used, others are planted.  In addition, most major log home manufacturers are heavily involved in reforestation programs that replace more trees than are harvested.  Not only are the trees renewable, all parts of the tree are used beneficially with minimal waste.  Bark is recycled for landscaping, bedding, and mulch. The trunks are kept primarily for the walls for homes and the smaller trunks and branches are valued for their furniture making abilities.

Log homes provide what's known as "surface as finish". What this means is that the interior walls themselves don't require additional building materials.  This in turn cuts down on chemicals or materials that use chemicals in their processing, and because less interior finishing needs to be done, you save money.

Log homes also require fewer metal fasteners to erect the building which means less cost.  Because the solid construction of a log home isn't dependant on it's fasteners but rather the gravitational weight of the logs themselves as the home continues to "settle", the energy efficiency of it increases, not decreases as more traditional houses.

Better thermal properties

Many studies have been done concerning the thermal properties of a log home versus a traditional stick-built house.  The evidence shows on average, the log home performs 17% better in holding heat than other types of houses, and in some cases this is even greater.  The climate, location and design of the home itself, and the windows and doors are all factors that help in the assessment.  A major difference was determined to be the thickness and solid makeup of the logs.

A Green Future

In the future, if it is decided to replace the house, the environmental benefits of log homes carries forth...  Rather than demolish the home, it will most likely be de-constructed.  The timbers are extremely valuable and are recycled for hundreds of other uses and demand for them is always high.  At that time, those same logs may become someone's kitchen cabinets, a dinette set, bedroom set, picture frame, wall paneling, ceiling beams, baby blocks, a desk, or one of a thousand other items all made from the wonderful logs that housed a family for many years.

There are so many possibilities with logs homes and the choices are endless.  They can be designed to be as individual as you are and their eco-friendly footprint rests lightly on our fragile planet.  Everyone needs a house, but a log or timber frame home will serve your family and our environment best.

More green...

To delve deeper into this area of green building and eco-friendly structures, I suggest you visit the following websites.

• Green Building.com
• Green Building Council 
• U.S. EPA Green Buildings Program
• Loghomeology - Green Building info
• Environmental News Network

Next:  Green building - Going green all around the house! ►

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