LEED pioneer shows off his sustainable home
August 10, 2010 | Length: 00:02:10
Founder of the U.S. Green Building Council, David Gottfried helped dream up rating system that eventually became LEED-otherwise known as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification system. SmartPlanet visits the visionary's LEED platinum house in Oakland, California for a tour of its sustainable features.
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RE: LEED pioneer shows off his sustainable home
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Less Greed can lead to more Green
RE: LEED pioneer shows off his sustainable home
RE: LEED pioneer shows off his sustainable home
Incidentally, I would be willing to bet that he has spent more money on his home for green-upgrades than the house is worth (national average) today without the upgrades... I'm just saying...
My move toward green? We just run the AC much warmer, use xeriscape, switched to CFL's, try not to run the heat in the winter, run the washer/drier more efficiently, and share rides as much as possible if we can't walk to our destination. Poor man's green. Works for me.
Don
RE: LEED pioneer shows off his sustainable home
Ig just goes to show what a waste of money the whole "GREEN" movement is.
Living Green is for the very weathy who have money to waste on such things. The Green movement is not a movement for resource efficiency, it is movement to obtain a certain type of life style. People who choose Green do so for personal tastes and lifestyle not because it is a more efficient and less wastefull way to live. The Government seems to have a hard time accepting this truth. It is a shame they try to impose "Green" as a preffered way to live among any other.
RE: LEED pioneer shows off his sustainable home
Bazza.
RE: LEED pioneer shows off his sustainable home
RE: LEED pioneer shows off his sustainable home
Less Greed can lead to more Green
When I looked a buying a new home in 2003 the developer wanted to charge me $350 per additional Ethernet wire drop. For the same $350 I payed an electrician to install 4 drops plus purchase 1,000 ft of Cat5e cable and the heads, wall plates and connectors. Given that my purchases where retail and included shipping & taxes I would say the developer charging these amounts is gauging.
So if developers would gauge a little less I'm sure they can afford to throw in solar water heaters and solar panels for the typical $500K price they charge for a new home in the Washington area.
Transcript
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>>David Godfrey: I'm David Godfrey and I'm the founder of the US Green Building Council and came up with the idea that we needed to do a green building rating system for the US and it became LEED. Why is LEED important? It guides architects and engineers, building owners through the maze and confusion of what is a green building so it demystifies the topic and creates a simple score card that we can navigate. Today we're looking at my LEED Platinum home. We wanted to walk the talk and went at it pretty hard with the house. I'm not going to say we're perfect. I strive for 90 - 95%. We're not net zero which is disappointing to me but we're finally measuring it to know what we are. A major part of the house is its super energy efficient. We put in new windows that were super insulated so we got the envelope type. We have about 2.7 kilowatts of solar, 16 panels which contribute about 60% of the energy load. We have a radiant heating system and the solar hot water will preheat our hot water for the radiator heaters which are on each wall. We capture over half of our roofs rainwater to feed the toilet. We have three barrels about 150 gallons that also capture rainwater for supplemental watering of the vegetable garden. Ultimately you can work on greening building, creating green building councils, new technologies but green starts at home and we all live in a home and if our homes aren't green then we're not pure in terms of our beliefs.
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