The greenest house is no house at all.
By the same token, we could make the least impact on the earth by lying quietly by the ocean, awaiting death and a gust of wind to blow our bleached bones across the sea... but that doesn't sound like much fun at all. Even ants get a chance to build something. Worms. Microbes. Somewhere between complete despondence and a rosewood toilet seat from the last rain forest is the refreshing notion of sustainable building.
The sustainable approach isn't exactly new. The 1970s may be known for such design classics as green shag carpet, contact paper daisies, dome homes, and abandoned underground houses, but those years of unbridled passion for all things alternative also helped spur a more thoughtful approach to building. And when I say "thoughtful," I mean Thought Full. In today's alternative choices for shelter, there is no black-and-white solution (outside of the lay-down-and-die option), only ten thousand shades of grey to choose from. You have to consider lifetime energy use, quality and durability, environmental effects such as VOCs and out-gasing, transportation, and even embodied energy, which is the energy required when a product is manufactured. It's not long before analysis paralysis grips a conscientious builder and he winds up in the corner sucking on his hammer and mumbling about rammed earth and finger-jointed studs, engineered lumber and heat pumps.
When Richard and I built the house we live in now, there was little talk of sustainability around the lumberyard, but we managed to do some things right despite our best intentions. We have floor joists from the Armadillo World Headquarters, oak floors from a demolished church, used bridge timbers for uprights, doors from an old house on West 12th, and wired-glass in our kitchen cabinets from the maternity window at Brackenridge.
Building with salvaged materials requires a certain mindset, and an ability to convince yourself that you love the chip in that pedestal sink, or that the slightly skewed door to the bedroom just screams "character." You can't set your heart on a certain look; you have to set your heart on the looks that turn up. Building with Junk and Other Good Stuff (Loompanics Unlimited) by Jim Broadstreet is a great source of inspiration for both beginning and advanced scroungers. He cautions, however, that not all bargains are what they seem.
Windows and exterior doors are a good example of penny wise, pound foolish scrounging. Richard and I are living proof of that. In the wintertime, your tongue will stick to the inside of our north-facing, single-pane windows. We pay for our savings on the cost of the windows when the electric bill comes. Old refrigerators, air-conditioners, and water heaters are also also risky deals, both energy wise and safety wise.
Used lumber, on the other hand, is a joy to discover and can add character to a shoe box. It takes some looking, though. Scour the "building materials" section of the Statesman classifieds. Get in touch with mills in the area, like Wampler or Texas Kiln Products in Bastrop, Alamo Hardwoods in San Antonio, Uvalde Mesquite Products, or Delta Lumber in Austin. Patience is paramount is this game, but you never know when treasures like long-leaf pine beams or 1"x 6" cypress flooring will show up.
Once you've found your treasure, brace yourself - sometimes the work has just begun.By the time I'd cleaned up all the 2"x12" rafters we snagged from a Victorian home they were demolishing on 12th Street in the early Eighties, I had the nail-pulling expertise to yank a railroad spike out of lignumvita (the world's hardest wood).
Coby Ramirez, at Ramirez Properties, was pulling nails the day I stopped by his family's salvage yard, which is crammed with dimensional lumber, old siding, doors, shutters, and windows. Coby said sometimes when he pulls nails all day long, he keeps pulling them in his dreams. (He eschews the newfangled nail pullers for the old standbys, the hammer and crowbar.)
As lumber mills close in the Northeast and the majestic beauties are red-tagged for the owls, the demand for reclaimed lumber climbs. The higher the demand, the more creative the sources for this wood becomes. There is a limit to the number of cotton gins and hundred-year-old warehouses - homes to the almost extinct "big wood" like 12" x12" timbers - that can be torn down. The search has expanded to include pulling huge cypress logs from the bottom of rivers where they sank on their way to the mill a hundred years ago, the anaerobic conditions preserving them perfectly. Former "trash" trees, such as mesquite and Bois D'Arc, are experiencing new-found respect as expensive flooring and cabinet material. Even the much-maligned Hill Country junipers are being harvested as latillas for coyote fences. Lumber brokers are working with the highway department to make use of the thousands of trees that are sacrificed annually for ubiquitous road-improvement projects. Mills like Norton Hill Wood Company and Hansen Lumber Company in New Mexico, home of the near-required Southwest-style of building, which demands big-timbered vigas, are carefully removing "standing dead" spruce, casualties of natural causes, from the national forests. When all of this is gone, I don't know, maybe we'll have lost our taste for wood products and everything will be made from moon rocks.
There seems to be an endless supply of some of the best recycled products - knobs, drawer pulls, switch plate covers, and light fixtures. Happy hunting for these tiny gems can begin at the Habitat for Humanity Thrift Store (aka Re-Store). Don't go with a narrow idea of what you're looking for. Consider, for example, the eclectic appeal of mismatched cabinets pulls. Before you disregard that unsalvageable door, take a closer look. Wrecked doors are often festooned with incredibly beautiful butt hinges, fancy knobs, or locksets. Antique lamp globes that have misplaced their fixtures are good finds, along with porcelain sinks and tubs in unique colors.
If you're scrounging for that high-tech, industrial look (really, it'll come back; everything does) I know where all the stainless steel goes when it dies - Ogden Restaurant Equipment. Wander through acres of coolers, sinks, margarita machines, fryers, and mystery equipment. Most of the stuff looks like it would take an act of God to restore it to its original function, but wouldn't a huge, broken restaurant refrigerator make a great stainless steel armoire or china cabinet? I'm still trying to figure out what I can make out of the two giant steel paddles from a cement truck that are languishing there.
One of my favorite products is lumber made from old tires and recycled plastics. The very idea that these two monumental waste problems (an estimate 250 million tires are junked annually in the United States) can become something useful gives me chill bumps and a small case of optimism. Harold Fischer of Renewed Materials Industries told me they used 3 million pounds of post consumer plastics and old tires last year and they hope to double or triple that amount this year. Right now, their product, a 2"x 8" tongue-and-groove plank, is used mainly in stock trailers for a floor that will last a lifetime (or, Fischer estimates, at least 500 years). It has also been used in place of treated wood in docks or deck bracing. The company is now perfecting a new product - imitation slate shingles that will be completely fire and hail proof.
The idea of paper homes may not be far off, considering the emergence of a cache of building products using recycled newspapers, a seemingly endless resource. When corporate giants like Louisianna-Pacific join smaller companies in a hearty embrace of second-hand newspaper as a raw material, you know this ain't no passing fancy. Underlayment, wallboard, and sheathing made with cellulose from recycled newsprint and recovered gypsum are now available from a variety of manufacturers. Unfortunately, many of them are not available in Austin. But it doesn't hurt to nag the folks at the sales counter at your neighborhood mega-home-store.
Cellulose insulation, which proponents claim beats fiberglass insulation in every way, is often made of 100% recycled newspapers. It's non-toxic, non-irritating, reduces air infiltration, and has a higher R-value. But do you know why I think it's great? It doesn't itch. Terry Taylor with Enerchek has been spraying Celbar insulation for years and you couldn't find a more enthusiastic supporter. He even sent me an 11-minute video narrated by Ron Stone to answer some of my questions.
It would take a much lengthier video to explain the plethora of "engineered" building products now on the market. And another video to explain why they're so difficult to find in Austin. Richard and I searched high and low for finger-jointed studs before finding them at Foxworth-Galbraith Lumber, a rather obscure but friendly place to do business. We framed up a section of our new house and then let it sit in the rain and sun for the past several weeks. Nothing happened. No cupping, no warping, no separation at the glue joints. Obviously, finger-jointed lumber can only be used under vertical loads, but I'm a total convert. Not only was our 200-board order free of any culls or "twisted banana boards," but it also used up the short pieces of lumber which are normally scrapped or pulped. I saw a cartoon when I was a kid where they hauled a huge tree into the mill and whittled the whole thing down to one toothpick. I always think of that toothpick when I see one perfectly straight, clear stick of pine or spruce; just how big did the tree have to be to find such a flawless core?
Or what about that pile of gorgeous pine 2"x10"x 16' beams that will be hidden forever in someone's attic? How majestic was the tree those were whittled from? Engineered materials, which can be made from smaller, faster growing trees, are an alternative to guilt-inducing solid lumber. Not only do products such as gluelams, laminated strand lumber, and plywood web I-joists cut down on tree consumption by using almost 80 percent of a tree, they are virtually free of cracks, warping, shrinking, checking, or cupping. Stripling-Blake carries some engineered timbers. If you have questions, choose the sales clerk you ask for information carefully; some seem downright hostile about these products.
Some of this hostility may be traced to peoples' prejudices against some engineered products, especially sheet materials which can look suspiciously like particle board. Like most prejudice, this one is ill-founded. You sneeze on particle board and it disintegrates. Oriented Strand Board (OSB), on the other hand, is tougher than conventional plywood and is fast becoming the sheathing and roof decking of choice in even the most expensive homes. In terms of "green," OSB manufacturing processes are more material-efficient and, over the years, have become compliant with the strictest environmental standards.
The Sustainable Building Sourcebook from the City of Austin's Environmental and Conservation Services Department (whew) lists an intriguing number of other engineered products. Especially appealing to me are those interior wallboards made from agricultural by-products or recycled newspaper and gypsum which don't need to be taped or floated! But neither does fake maple paneling, so I'll try to contain my enthusiasm until I receive my requested samples.
Although I mentioned the Sourcebook last, it is probably the most important tool a green builder wannabe in Austin can buy. In the Building Materials section alone there's information and resources for a host of products I didn't even touch on - floor coverings, structural wall panels, windows and doors, and flyash concrete (see Home Schooling). My copy is already dog-eared from loving use. Sometimes I want to tuck it under my arm and go stand on the corner of Bee Caves Road and Barton Club Drive and preach the Green word. n