Building Healthy, Comfortable, Durable, Energy Efficient and Environmentally Responsible
Homes and Buildings

Energy efficiency of a building is measured at two levels.

The first is the embodied energy of the building materials. Embodied energy is the energy that has been put into it to make the finished component.  For example, aluminum as 3 times more embodied energy than steel. Concrete (cement portion) has considerable embodied energy. Wood has almost none - just the amount for sawing, planing and sanding.

Second is the operating energy to maintain the building in a comfortable conditioned state. For example, all the heat and light energy used during the life time of the building (which should be more than a hundred years). This amount of energy is very large when added up over all the years.

See section on Environment for what this is doing to the Earth.

Energy efficiency is the number one concern for designing and building an environmentally responsible building.  There are several strategies for achieving it. The first is to use a high performance insulation system. This goes a long way to conserve the heat energy already in the building. The second is to use passive solar heating to warm our buildings with sunshine. Burning gas or oil or using electricity consumes non-renewable natural resources.

High performance windows and doors are critical to an energy efficient responsible building.

Construction details and good workmanship are also critical to an energy efficient and durable building.

Below is an introduction on solar water heating for the home -

Over 60% of the average Americans energy use goes to produce heat for their homes, water, and cooking. Fortunately, solar energy is well suited for these uses. Solar water heating systems have been warming water in American homes, schools and businesses for over 100 years. Even in Central Washington, they can supply 90 percent of a family's hot water from May to October, and more than half of what they use throughout the year.

Solar thermal collectors concentrate radiant heat from the sun and transfer it to a fluid. Solar thermal collectors are divided into two categories for residential use:

1. Low temperature collectors provide low grade heat, less than 110 Fahrenheit, through either metallic or nonmetallic absorbers for applications such as swimming pool heating and low grade water and space heating.
2. Medium temperature collectors provide medium to high grade heat (greater than 110 Fahrenheit, usually 140 to 180 Fahrenheit), either through glazed flat plate collectors using air or liquid as the heat transfer medium or through concentrator collectors that concentrate the heat to levels greater than "one sun." These include evacuated tube collectors, and are most commonly used for residential hot water heating

Domestic Hot Water  They come in a variety of styles but all of them collect heat in some liquid, usually water or water mixed with an anti-freeze, that runs through pipes in a box with glass on the front. The box helps keep temperatures inside around the pipes higher so more heat transfers to the liquid. The hot liquid gives its heat to another loop of pipes through a heat exchanger and this new loop is used for home hot water use or heating the space with a radiator.