Symbiotic Home (sym-home) has expanded upon its mission of documenting the “Greening” of a typical 1960’s home on a modest budget prioritizing projects in terms of needs, environmental benefits and financial paybacks.

Sym-Home is now providing residential design services, home energy audits and consulting.  Sym-Home specializes in energy efficient, healthy & durable homes.  Joshua Lloyd, owner of sym-home, draws from a decade’s worth of experience in the architectural field. In addition, his experience includes producing construction documents and coordinating LEED documentation for Ohio’s first LEED Platinum Home, located in Columbus, Ohio.

Sym-Home also provides home energy audits, helping home owners to take control of their homes energy usage by providing them the appropriate information after a thorough inspection and test on the home to see where the most energy is used and prioritize a list of recommended projects in terms of financial payback.  Joshua Lloyd, is a certified Building Analyst through the Building Performance Institute (BPI) to conduct home energy audits.

Sym-Home also provides consulting services to homeowners, builders and other design professionals.  Sym-Home can assist project teams with issues related to high performance structures, from building science issues, schematic level energy modeling for both commercial and residential structures, and LEED documentation and coordination.

Sym-Home considers residential design and home energy audits as a complimentary service to each other, especially for home owners looking to renovate or add on to an existing home.  Home energy auditing tools can be a valuable resource during the design and construction phases of a new home and renovation.

For those of you who have been following the renovation process, we will be re-posting all the projects with more images and information regarding each project in a series called “To Kill an Energy Hog”

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I am always telling people with green design and construction, you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere with what goals you are going to try and obtain for any project. Are you going to focus on energy efficiency, indoor air quality, renewable materials, etc.

Catherine Mohr makes her decisions to building a green home by analyzing the numbers and examining the embodied energy of the materials and systems going into the home. So watch her presentation, and ask yourself this; if you are building a new home home, what is important to you, and where would you draw the line?

Catherine Mohr builds green

Check out Catherine Mohr’s blog as she ventures into green home building.

Partially to give me something to do, and partially to help build my portfolio, I entered the FreeGreen.com “Who’s Next?” green home design competition.  FreeGreen.com has been attempting to bring progressive home designs to mainstream America by offering free home plans to download.  However the “Who’s Next?” competition is intended to kick off the launch of a new plans site with designs that are for purchase.

With over 400 entrants, the competition is stiff.  Public voting began on March 2nd 2010, and will close on March 18th.  The top 3 submissions will receive $5,000, a chance to develop the design and offer it on their new for sale plans site.  All entries are 1,800 square feet or less and in two separate categories.  The first, “The Starter House” for a young married couple looking to expand their family.  The second “The Not So Empty Nest” for an older retired couple looking to downsize, yet still want to accommodate family gatherings and take into consideration potential mobility issues by the homeowner.  I had the chance to enter a submission in both categories, one with an old co-worker and friend, as well as a submission on my own.  So please take some time to review my submissions as well as others, and I would appreciate your support and vote.  You can vote for each entry once per email address.

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I debated for a long time whether I should re-post this article or not, because it definitely belongs in the Burning Bridges category.  However this is not representative of all builders.  My primary reason for re-posting is for consumer education.  If one potential new home owner reads this and questions their builder on something/anything.  Then re-posting this was worth it.

Brutally Honest Attack on Homebuilders?

by Mr. Dorris via Consilience: The blog

As I have previously posted, the 20% of homebuilders who build 80% of all homes are not in the business of building homes, they are in the business of making money (increasing shareholder value) and, therefore, do not necessarily know how to build.

Continue reading the article at Consilence: The Blog

How Energy Efficient Is My Home? | GreenBuildingAdvisor.com

Posted on Aug 25 by Lynn Underwood, GBA Advisor

A newly adopted provision in the 2006 edition of the International Residential Code (IRC) requires that a permanent certificate be posted on the electrical distribution panel. This certificate is for the express purpose of identifying the efficiency of various energy components of the home and must include the following:

energy efficiency certificate

energy efficiency certificate

  • The predominate R-value of insulation in ceiling/roof, walls, foundation, crawl space wall, and floor;
  • U-factors for windows, skylights, etc. (where there is more than one value, the value covering the largest area must be listed);
  • The solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) of windows, skylights, etc. (again, where there is more than one value, the value covering the largest area must be listed);
  • The types and efficiencies of heating, cooling, and water heating equipment.
  • Continue reading the article at Greenbuildingadvisor.com