Sustainable Building—Going Beyond Green Building!

Sustainable building starts with a sustainable design. This is a building process of design that starts from the ground up with materials and construction methods taken into consideration at the very beginning of the project. Some of the terms used to describe this method are Design with Climate and Passive Solar.

The overall effect of sustainable design and construction is to reduce the net energy consumption of a structure and use renewable resources during the construction process. Two of the most important components to this method are proper insulation and air sealing. From the start of the design process we work with an energy consultant to evaluate the insulating details of a home. However, if a customer comes to us with plans containing completed specifications but wishes higher energy efficiency, we are still able to make recommendations on how to use sustainable materials and methods without altering the finished, desired appearance of their project.

Over the last several years our homes have been put through extensive testing with a blower door and infrared camera to check for proper insulating and air infiltration. If you’re interested in building a home with lower heating and cooling cost, a high-performance home, Schultz Building can assist you with the design and construction of your new home.

Green building has turned into an advertising and marketing tool that has nothing to do with building but everything to do with selling products. The fact is there are many products deemed green that are not environment friendly and are not renewable. These products are defined by the materials that compose them, the energy it takes to produce them and deliver them to the end user.

The evaluating process, used to determine if a product is truly renewable, determines how much energy the manufacturing process takes, raw materials used and fuel burned to deliver the product. The process then ranks the product in terms of "embodied energy." The higher the "embodied energy" the less desirable it is to use in a sustainable building design.