I was talking to the owner of a LEED Platinum House this weekend about what lessons were learned in the construction. [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership_in_Energy_and_Environmental_Design[/ame] 1) The lead contractor initially gave lip service about making a "green" house. Fortunately, the owners responded by putting the LEED platinum certification in a highly incentivized contract. That caused a 180 change of attitude and the contractor made dang sure he knew all the steps and documentation to ensure his paycheck. 2) A LEED consultant talked to all the subcontractors about what they had to do. (e.g. dump all construction trash into designated recycle bins, etc.) However, one of the key things the consultant made clear that this would be the first job that they would finish without having headaches, no nausea during the day, and not having the "run down" feelings when going home that come from being around all the fumes of "conventional" construction. Apparently, this made the crews quite sold on working LEED projects. 3) The solar hot water system required the users to turn on a purge pump to return the dead water between the source and the bathroom/kitchen. No guest knew how to work this, causing a lot of complaints. Fortunately, the homeowners rewired the purge pump to activate with a motion sensor for the room. That caused the water to be ready once they needed the hot water.
Related to LEED building standards is the effort to start building buildings to passive-house standards. Came across this article yesterday which highlights some of the issues with doing so specifically in the US: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/business/energy-environment/26smart.html?src=busln I wonder how many of those concepts can easily be retrofitted to existing houses. Passive-house buildings typically have extremely thick walls with a LOT of insulation - think 12-17" thick with no direct conducting path between the inside and outside of the house. Windows are mostly on south facing walls to encourage passive heating in the winter, but have awnings to avoid excessive heat gain in the summer. Triple glazed windows are standard to reduce heat loss. Compared to my current house built in the 1970s, I have from 3-6" of insulation depending on the wall/ceiling (unfortunately cathedral type ceilings everywhere so adding additional insulation is not easy without making a big mess). Thankfully the climate is mostly moderate so this isn't an issue most of the year, but there's typically about 2 months in the summer where it'd be great if the house would stay cooler (especially during heat waves like the past couple days) and 2-3 months of cooler temps where a passive-house would likely not need any additional heating at all - now that we have an efficient furnace we probably use about 100 therms of gas a heating season.
