I was always so intrigued looking at the Instagram accounts of my favorite home bloggers in Europe to see them assembling cinderblock walls during construction. I've read home blogs about using ICF (insulated concrete forms) as the frame of the house. I've also seen many bloggers in Finland use the term "musta puutalo" which is a black wooden house - similar to a log home, but more modern. In Michigan homes are typically built with "stick frame" construction and a poured concrete basement as the foundation.
It's easy to fall into the thinking of - "oh, we're on a budget, so we'll just do the traditional methods." But are the newer methods that much more money? Or could you even just implement some smaller 'green' elements into your traditional home build?
I'm not here to educate you on green home building. I'm still learning every day regarding what even goes into the traditional build process.
But I know some important considerations after interviewing a green homebuilder:
If this is your forever home, do you plan to make this more of a self-sufficient homestead, with low energy bills? If not solar now, at least wired for it to add panels later?
Does your traditional builder consider things like whole-home water filters? Electric car chargers?
Do you consider healthy materials? Ones with no or low-VOCs?
What about insulation that doesn't trap moisture in the walls, causing mold? Or an air-tight environment with a ventilation system for fresh outdoor air?
So the question is - what's important to you? For me, I very much value clean air with a desire for low VOC products and maybe a ventilation system to cycle air from the outside. If we lived in more Southern climates, and being on the property that we are, I'd opt to just open windows all the time. However, with the winter it's best to have some sort of heat recovery ventilation system.
What's also important to me is the structural integrity of the house - with weather getting more volatile, being up on a hill, and in the woods where trees can fall, I'm very interested in the stability of an ICF build.
With all this said, I'm excited to get quotes for a traditional stick build but also going to dual path with quotes of the elements I just mentioned. Here's to figuring all this out together!! :)
*Tip: Even if you don't think you can afford a green home, be sure to interview one to learn more about their build style. You can take or leave certain elements of that into your traditional build.
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