Green building uses strategies that embrace patterns in nature that create opportunities for cost savings. By incorporating passive strategies to utilize sun paths, capture prevailing breezes and water runoff, we can reduce dependency on mechanical systems. This allows us to design a comfortable home and only use those systems to augment nature as needed. To make the best of what nature has given us, we must analyze the microclimate of our location. How you build depends on where you are building; local climate dictates your best building practices. Climate is not just about region, though – it can be very site specific!
Whether you are selecting a lot in a subdivision, a condo in a high-rise, or a large plot of land, there are a few aspects of the building site that you should consider. We will discuss some basic building science in this website, so if you are not able to achieve a comfortable understanding of these concepts, then this is the point at which you should hire a building designer who can provide expert advice on which location might offer the best passive benefits, considering these three principles:
- The sun rises in the east and sets in the west: the basis for passive solar strategies.
- Hot air rises: the basis for natural ventilation strategies.
- Water runs downhill: basis for water management strategies.
These three natural laws and how they exist on your site can create challenges or opportunities for building your green dream home. Unfortunately, land developers who plan lot orientations and plat lots cut out of large parcels of land do not normally put much thought into how those plot plans contribute to good home orientation. So, what to do if the building lot faces the wrong direction or has its long sides running on an undesirable axis? These circumstances are definitely where a good green architect proves their value. Designing for the site is never more critical than in these situations. If you already have a less than ideal building site, a good designer can find creative ways to take advantage of or overcome orientation issues.
Hot Air Rises
Hot or warm air is less dense, causing it to rise above denser, cooler air. To take advantage of this phenomenon, look for a site that is in the path of natural wind currents. Take a few minutes to visit the National Resources Conservation Service website to find data on the prevailing wind direction and average wind speeds for your area. Determine whether the topography of the site is going to promote airflow or prevent it. Is your site flat or on a hill? If it is on a hill, it’s best to build on the side of the hill facing the direction that the wind comes from. So if your area’s prevailing breeze is out of the south, you should be looking for either a flat building site unobstructed from the south, or the south slope of a hill. You don’t want to build a house on the opposite slope of the hill, where stagnant air will trap heat or cold pockets, not allowing it to move on.
Water Runs Downhill
Next, look for natural drainage patterns when investigating potential building sites. If you take a close look at the topographical map of the building sites below, some of the lots have low spots in the middle, probably about where a house would sit. Having water coming downhill toward your home’s foundation from all directions, even with the slightest slope, is not the preferred drainage plan and can lead to lots of costly problems in the future. If this is your situation, it will require designing alternative drainage routes and installing stormwater management controls.
In next article, we’ll discuss the importance of managing stormwater onsite. For now you just need to make certain that you are selecting a building site where it will be possible to establish positive water drainage away from your foundation. Verify that the site does not have flooding or access issues, or is not in a valley shaped like a bowl, making it impossible to manage stormwater drainage, or at the least, very expensive.
To take this concept a little further, though, it’s important to note that water also runs down a roof and down the wall and basement assemblies too. So in designing the home, make sure you establish a drainage pattern that provides a path to get water off and away from your home in rain and wind- driven storm events. Thinking ahead at this early point in the process will pay off many times over later in money saved on basement and foundation water management and on maintenance to repair water damage to your home.
Your site management plan should include effective temporary (i.e., during construction) erosion controls and stormwater management. You don’t want to lose your valuable topsoil that is exposed during the construction of the home. Silt fencing has long been recognized by building codes for meeting temporary erosion control standards, but other more natural materials work as well. Many green builders use straw bales to line the lot.
Other Considerations for Site Selection
Risk Assessment
At this point, it is important to do a risk assessment of your building site. Areas prone to flood, earthquakes, tornados or hurricanes, or even pests like termites can incur considerable structural damage over a building’s lifetime. We like to think that most of the new buildings being constructed will stand at least 75-100 years, but sustainable construction teaches us to think in terms of hundreds of years. So, in analyzing certain risk possibilities, think in terms of what events are likely to occur over that time span. Hence the relevance of terms like “100-year flood,” for example, when considering if the site is in a flood plain. It does not mean the event will happen one hundred years from the time that you build. Take a moment to think about the last time such an event did occur at the site. It might be that the odds are stacked against you: the event might be likely to occur sooner rather than later. If the area has seen increased development and impervious cover, you can expect more floods even with less rain in the future. Regardless, plan and design for such events, and specify materials and methods to mitigate any damages that they might cause on your site.
Many areas now allow development in flood plains, mandating stormwater management plans to mitigate damages and taxpayer-subsidized flood insurance for when those expected flood events occur. In essence, this means that we are committing the resources of the future to rebuild what we expect to be destroyed. And as this would be a reoccurring concern in these areas, it will also continue to be a losing proposition.
Some risks, like termites, are not assessed by historic frequency. Termites migrate in colonies, often having been introduced to an area on building materials (or even firewood) brought in from other parts of the country or world. The US Forestry Service map designates areas of the United States in terms of termite risk, from “none to slight,” “slight to moderate,” “moderate to heavy,” and “very heavy.” After determining which area you are in and what your risk tolerance is, it’s best to plan accordingly during design and construction to minimize damages from this risk. Materials and methods to address with various risks are discussed in Chapter 4.
Site History
In choosing a building site, be aware of areas that have been subjected to pollution contamination. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfield and Superfund? Programs require that identified disposal-contaminated areas are cleaned up before redevelopment can take place. Note the term “identified,” as numerous sites have not been officially inspected and recorded, so be certain to look closely at the site and ask questions on that some of the least expensive land available is that farmland. At the same time, corporate commercial farming is driving small family farms bankrupt. Communities need to create incentives to conserve our suburban agricultural land to grow local, organic foods to keep us healthy. In the meanwhile, you can do your part by not buying a building site in one of these developments.
To make up for the farmland already lost to expanding development, we need to provide conservation areas of land in the urban core, from our own back yards to community gardens. To support this effort, we need to create organic waste management structures in our communities to provide natural, organic fertilizers for this purpose. These efforts are part of the core foundation of sustainable communities. We will talk more about how you can contribute to this effort in Chapter 13.
Where Did Nature Go? Talk to anyone in the town that you live in and ask them what that place was like just 25 years ago. If you can find someone older, ask about 50 years ago. You will no doubt hear that, of course, there were far fewer people and “I can remember when the outskirts of town was much closer in than it is now.” You will hear stories of places that aren’t there any more, places people used to go that were natural. Inevitably, you will hear people talk about land that’s in the city now that used to be a large farm, where their father took them picking fresh produce in bushel baskets for canning as a child. How many of our current grocers shelves boast ingredients that are so local?
Many developers purchase land dense with tree cover only to completely clear it so that they do not have to deal with potential lot buyers who want to save this or that tree or have to work around a tree that’s in the way. The wildlife that once lived there has been completely displaced. Even now, some of our neighborhoods are overrun with wild deer because their territories have been turned to suburbs. Then we even move into the greenbelts to put in golf courses for lifestyle communities, and push wildlife to the limit on space. And we consider them nuisances! Why is it that we humans think we own and control nature? Stewardship is a far better ethic in our opinion.
Those developers, and ultimately homebuyers, still do not recognize the long-term consequences of this approach. We have seen species go extinct from destruction of habitat, while other populations explode from destruction of predators, both at the hand of man. Now we find ourselves forced to designate wildlife sanctuaries to protect birds and butterflies from loss of their migratory habitats to development.
We need to remember that we are part of a great food chain that starts with the smallest creatures and works its way up to us. We, and the meat that we eat, both eat plants. Plants depend on the worm that feeds the bird that fertilizes the soil that grows the plant.
We are all interdependent for our survival. This reminds us of a John Muir quote, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” It is also important for our own health that we still have places, albeit nature preserves or just little backyard sanctuaries or pocket parks, where we can still commune with nature, smell fresh air, see butterflies and hear birds sing. This topic will be discussed further in Chapter 8.
Payback on This Investment
To get a true picture of site costs and site value, we need to look at the larger picture. We use fossil fuel resources every day for commuting from our homes to our work or other activities. When we build in remote areas, we dedicate resources to construct and maintain (forever!) roadways, utility services and other services. Then we use even more fossil fuel resources to travel to the same activities because the commute is now much longer. This is one of the reasons that green building practices promote high-density, mixed-use urban infill developments.
Sprawl forces us to take on bonded indebtedness to pay for new roads, schools, water and sewage treatment facilities and new power transmission lines. This new bonded indebtedness will take years, if not generations, to pay off, with no end in sight for our continued thirst to add more! Our existing urban core infrastructure was built and paid for long ago at a much lower initial cost. Much of that infrastructure is now at least 25 years old (and some of it 75 years old) and in need of maintenance and repairs, but since our tax revenues are committed to pay off these newer bonds, funds are not available to do this. Many cities now face serious groundwater contamination from old leaky sewage and water delivery pipes they no longer have funds to maintain or repair. By increasing density in existing urban areas rather than creating more sprawl, we can take dedicate new bond funds to maintaining and updating existing facilities, addressing the additional service load capacity and reducing the waste.
The same is true for utility and emergency service providers. With high-density urban development, service providers can focus investments to increase the capacities within their existing territory, and servicing higher densities means that they are able to spread that cost over a larger customer base. But as developments get more spread out, providing services to the same population requires more investment in delivery systems and personnel, passing those added costs on to all of their subscribers. Sometimes developmental fees are charged directly by utilities or municipalities to these rural developments for the costs of adding additional infrastructure. But ultimately, the costs of adding more support and emergency services associated with sprawl, and conversely the cost savings associated within increased urban density, are reflected in the tax base of the community. Property taxes, sales taxes, or whatever form your local jurisdiction chooses to pass on these costs as well as portions of the federal income taxes paid by working taxpayers nationwide, all contribute to fund federal financial road and infrastructure assistance programs. However they are paid for, these costs will affect the bottom line of your total home budget. Not only now, but for as long as you own your home, even after the mortgage is paid off.
Let’s look at some of the potential pitfalls for the long-range return on investment (ROI) potential for your affordable home in the country versus the urban infill bungalow:
- Gasoline prices are expected to soar to $7-$8/gallon in the next couple of years. Along with wear and tear on your automobile, what does that do to your household budget? What do you think those costs will look like in 10-20 years? How about 40-50 years? Will those homes be abandoned then because the cost of commuting will no longer be feasible?
- Populations are growing, more and more people are moving to the cities, often into the ever-expanding sprawl developments. Suburban sprawl creates long-distance commutes to work centers, shopping and recreational facilities, and is recognized as the main culprit for excess automotive travel and traffic congestion. How many hours a day will you be willing to spend commuting? What is that time worth, and what other activities are you giving up because of being robbed of that time?
- Think about the impact on air quality related to pollution from urban traffic automotive exhaust. Stormwater runoff carries automobile oil and gas waste from roadways into surface and groundwater supplies, again affecting drinking water quality. And we all share the impacts of air and water pollution on our health and healthcare costs. Reducing the frequency and duration of automotive travel is key to reversing this trend.
- Public service budgets are stretched to limits, the baby boomers are reaching retirement and will further strain Social Security and Medicare resources, meaning taxes are going up. Some municipalities and other government entities are already cutting spending on non-essentials, like non-critical maintenance. Where’s the money going to come from when your roads and utilities need maintenance or repairs?
On the other hand, if we choose an urban infill location for our home, in a high-density, mixed-use community with dedicated pedestrian and bicycle transit alternatives that connect us to retail, medical and other personal service providers, schools and recreation, with mass transit options for when we need to commute, we minimize our impact on the community and the impact that the concerns listed above have on our quality of life. More and more cities are investigating building mass transit alternatives for commuters, since fossil fuel supplies are diminishing quickly, traffic problems are getting worse as urban populations increase, and these same cities are under scrutiny as being non-compliant with air quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While the cost of building and maintaining these transit systems would create additional tax burden on the entire community or region, it would be far less than the cost associated with uncontrolled sprawl and unbridled sources of air pollution.
Taxation
Let’s take a closer look at the cheaper property taxes. Suburban or rural bedroom communities still provide much of the workforce for their urban “mother” city. As this type of development grows, taxes must be increased to support infrastructure (roads, utilities, emergency services and especially educational facilities) that must be provided. Eventually those bedroom community tax rates catch up to their urban counterparts. This is because urban dwellers typically pay a smaller proportionate share of costs due to their higher density.
