Cohousing-L Mailing List: Green Housing Can Cost Less to Build

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

I thought some of you contemplating new construction might find this
interesting.  Fred 

From: urban-ecology mailing list 9/29/00
http://www.egroups.com/group/urban-ecology :

Went to a Northeast Regional Sustainable Planning Conference on Monday and
one of the presentations was by Mark Kelley of GreenVillage Company
http://greenvillage [at] world.std.com and Hickory Consortium
http://www.hickoryconsortium.org on a recent affordable housing project of
50 units, the Erie-Ellington Homes for the Codman Square Neighborhood
Development Corportation in the Four Corners neighborhood of Boston.

The Erie-Ellington Homes use 49% less energy than standard homes, 41% less
water, reduce air pollutants by 25-60%, and reduce annual water,
electricity and heating operating expenses by 46%.  All to be expected by
anyone who has followed energy-crafted building for the last few years (or
decades).  What is most encouraging is that these houses cost 25% less to
build than conventional housing.  That is quite impressive and the
breakthrough we all should have been waiting for.  I've known for years
about the advantages of green building but the figures I'd always seen
showed that these changes cost about 5% more to build in than conventional
homes.  Now that Mark and his colleagues have shown that these advances
can be included at a lower per square foot cost than conventional
building, there is no reasonable argument left for continuing an energy
and resource wasting habit.

--
** Twin Cities Cohousing gathering Sat 11/4 10 years after...**
More info:   http://www.mtn.org/~fholson/sig-detail.htm
Fred H. Olson  fholson [at] cohousing.org    Minneapolis,MN   55411
(612)588-9532  Amateur radio: WB0YQM          List manager of:
Cohousing-L and Nbhd-tc (Twin Cities Neighborhood issues list)