Taking Our Eco Ethics To Hearth

At home, it's getting easier being green

ONE PERSON'S idea of green is another's idea of waste and excess.

I once wrote about a home remodel for a young Seattle family that wanted a green-built healthy house with more room. Boy, did I get a letter. Green? wondered Tracy Funderburk of Cle Elm, her ire sky high. The way she saw it, the only green feature was the choice of exterior paint:

"I don't see how making a house taller and bigger is 'going green.' . . . Energy is consumed and pollution is created every step of the manufacturing process. . . .

"Often, buying 'green' materials, finishes, fixtures and equipment is just a salve to make us feel 'responsible' about our new, even more ostentatious, consumption-oriented, and in the end, irresponsible lifestyle."

Consider Funderburk's letter as Exhibit A of the Green Conundrum: We are not of one mind about what constitutes sustainable, healthy, environmentally conscious building. Some of us are not in very good humor about it, either. A very cranky Wall Street Journal columnist recently sneered at these new homes as "upper-class environmentalism."

But we are Northwesterners. The great outdoors is not just a vacation destination. It's where we live. It's up close and personal. Just like our houses.

The Northwest EcoBuilding Guild takes a valiant stab at defining green building on its Web site under the title "Green Building 101." These guys should know: The guild is an association of builders, designers, homeowners, trades people, manufacturers, suppliers and others interested in ecologically sustainable building.

Among the nine-paragraph discussion of a definition we find: "On the simplest level, it's the structure itself: a building incorporating 'green' technologies and design elements, making it energy efficient, comfortable and healthy."

Just when you think you've got it: "Green building is also a broader term, one that describes a theory, a process, an approach. . . . It's a never-ending journey, for there's no green building panacea, no ecological Eden."

Clear as the mud on the wall of a straw-bale house.

Here's the short version, from building designer Chris Herman of Winter Sun Design: "Green incorporates energy efficiency, resource efficiency and low toxicity."

However you define them, these homes are coming to a neighborhood near you.

Since the year 2000, the Built Green program of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties has certified 6,051 projects as meeting its standards. That's between 14 and 17 percent annually, according to director Aaron Adelstein. And of 301 program members, 116 are builders committed to thinking green: There were a mere four members in 2000, when certification began.

City, county and state governments are also offering support to builders and architects:

• New money-saving incentives for using renewable energy became state law last July.

• With the Master Builders, the city sponsors the Built Green Seattle Design Competition, started in 2003 for residential projects.

• Seattle was the first city in the nation to adopt LEED building standards. (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is the U.S. Green Building Council's sustainable-building rating system.)

Meanwhile, government agencies are actually working together to further the cause. Peter Landry, district engineer and geologist for the King Conservation District, a state-level agency, has worked with Seattle to establish what he calls "some good common-sense requirements" for green building.

At the Phinney Neighborhood Association's Home Design and Remodel Fair in January, city workers filled three tables to answer questions, on a Sunday. The fair is a veritable one-day sustainable-building shopping mall.

Diane Sugimura, director of Seattle's Department of Planning and Development, says growth in interest and doing is tremendous. "Now we're seeing more private developers saying there is no question whether we should do this or not, we've got to."

Today, three Seattle families share their efforts to build homes that are beautiful, functional and meaningful.

The first couple have lived in their home for two years. Their house is comfortably warm, yet their highest heat bill was $66 (with an average of $25). Impressive.

The second family just moved into their place in January. Exciting.

The third is still in the throes of planning, permitting and selecting. Harrowing.

Rebecca Teagarden is assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine. Benjamin Benschneider is a magazine staff photographer.