What It Means To Be Green
Building Green
Today, there are many wonderful “Green” products to choose from that are made from sustainable materials, are locally made, are more energy efficient, off-gas less harmful chemicals, and are more recyclable. Heartwood Carpentry can assist you with your green product choices but our main responsibility as a building contractor is demonstrating sustainable building techniques.
Here’s how Heartwood Carpentry is Green:
Proper Site Planning – locate the structure to maximize solar gain and wind protection, and minimize water infiltration potential.
Super Insulating the House – there are fantastic types of foam, cellulose, and fiberglass applications that are transforming a home’s insulating capabilities. Special considerations are made to reduce thermal bridging.
Creating an Airtight Envelope – A drafty house means you are constantly reheating the interior air. We are meticulous about sealing possible air leaks and provide a blower door and thermal imaging test to document the tightness of the house.
Ventilating the Right Way – This goes hand in hand with creating an airtight house. A mechanical ventilation system will exchange interior air with exterior air without losing any heat.
Advanced Framing Techniques – We can reduce the amount of wood used to frame a house by designing an efficient layout design. By transferring all loads directly to the foundation, we can eliminate 30% of the studs found in a typical house and distribute spans to 24” on center rather than 16” on center. It allows us to use single plates and reduce the size of structural headers above doors and windows. Thermal bridging (the transfer of heat through a stud/rafter due to no insulation within the wood) is drastically reduced. It saves wood, labor, and creates a stronger building due to the fact that the structure is well planned rather than simply ganging multiple studs together as you go.
Solar heat collectors, photovoltaics, geo-thermal, and wind power are all exciting options that are becoming more affordable. However, there are some inexpensive techniques that we offer that dramatically effect energy efficiency such as passive solar construction, properly sized roof eaves, creating thermal mass, underground heat storage banks, etc.
Building Green is standard practice at Heartwood Carpentry. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions regarding sustainable building practices and materials.