Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Let's recycle old houses

[Tom Patton (tom]

On Wed, 24 May 1995 Mmariner [at] aol.com wrote:

> Would the *environmental* cost of moving them be versus the cost of materials
> from building brand new?  Sounds like a few gallons of diesel fuel & pouring
> a new concrete pad versus all the wood, drywall, plumbing, HVAC, wiring, etc.
                     ^^^^^^

As far as "a few gallons of diesel" are concerned, I would say this is
actually a vote for moving the house rather than buying new.  Probably
requires much more that a few gallons to move the wood, drywall, plumbing,
etc from halfway accross the country to the local distributor, and then to
the building site than moving the house.  

Which brings to mind another interesting element of the build new/retrofit
cost/benefit analysis.  If the retrofitting is done to homes that would be
housing people otherwise, new houses will be built to accomodate those
displaced by the people living there.  This may be very indirect, but people
have got to live somewhere.  So, when considering environmental impact,
it's not sufficient to say that there is no impact in retrofitting unless
the retrofit is accomplished by using materials that previously were not
in use (as in the excellent and inspiring post from Peter Starr at Marsh
cohousing).

If this is too much work or would not supply high enough quality housing
or there is little opportunity in a given area to find old wharehouses,
broken down houses, etc, then I would argue that building new construction
may actually have environmental benefits over retrofitting an
existing (functional, lived-in) neighborhood.  This seems particularly true
in areas experiencing population increases.

For example, if next year, there will be 1000 more families living in
Austin, where the housing market is very tight, and an existing functional
lived-in neighborhood is retro-fitted, there will still be 1000 normal new
houses built.  On the other hand, if 100 of these families are involved in
constructing environmentally-friendly new cohousing projects, then 100 "green"
houses and 900 "normal" houses will be built.

                     o----------------------------o
 o-------------------| Hate traffic? Ride a bike! | --------------------o
 |                   o----------------------------o                     |
 | Tom Patton                                   Development Specialist  |
 | tom_patton [at] unison.com                        Unison Software         |
 |                                              Austin, Texas USA       |
 |                o-----------------------------------o                 |
 o----------------| Don't confuse wealth with success |-----------------o
                  o-----------------------------------o