Do you think the building codes in America should be greened as much as possible?

Question

Wouldn't this save the enviroment and help with energy securiety? Wouldn't it also save people money? I'm not seeing a downside to more energy, heating and lighting efficient buildings built with more enviromentally friendly less toxic materials, is there one? I know that construction costs would sometimes go up but any initial increase in costs would be offset over a short period of time due to the savings greener construction would generate.

Answer 1

I could not agree more!

The time to design in energy efficiency is when you build the house. Most houses in most parts of this country could be heated nearly for free all year around if they had just been designed and built for passive solar heating.

Solar electric is much cheaper to install on new buildings too. So is solar hot water heating. Daylighting, the smart use of windows and skylights is easy when building new and saves the use of electric lights during the day.

All of these technologies will pay for themselves at today's prices over the lifetime of the average home.

The problem is that most people don't know that much about these technologies. Also until very recently most builders did not want to deal with this new stuff that seems complicated to them. Some times it does cost a little more too, and even though you get that money back in energy savings, the person selling the house is concerned that the extra cost will make it hard to sell.

These are all good reasons to make these technologies part of the building code. That creates an even playing field for everyone and it ensures that minimum standards are met and people are not cheated by false promises of energy efficiency that are not delivered. It also creates demand for these products, which will increase manufacturing volume and will reduce costs.

It is a win, win!

Answer 2

Most people don't realize is any building code is the MINIMUM standard. You can do anything you want above that.