Our home as it was purchased in 2005

Back in 2005 my wife and I purchased this ranch with a walk out basement.  It is/was your typical 1960′s stick built home.  Very low levels of insulation, single pane aluminum windows, with an unfinished basement and a huge backyard for the area, with lots of old growth trees.  The view out of the dinning room window was the selling point.  Some other nice amenities is that it is in a developed neighborhood with schools that are within walking distance, grocery within a mile.  The town also has a very active year round farmers market.  Plus the home was the mid point between both of our jobs at that time and is relatively close to a bus route.

The back of our home as it was purchased in 2005

However during the home inspection we found some troubling things.  There was little to no insulation in the attic, the basement walls were uninsulated.  And what makes that even worse is the fact that half of the house foundation is above ground.  Not to mention the aging heating and cooling equipment.  So we looked at this house as a blank slate, giving us the opportunity to not only renovate the home to fit our needs, but to do everything in an environmentally friendly way and to do it within our limited budget.

So this is where “Symbiotic Home” originally began.  A website to help educate others on what can be done to green their existing home.  Now with a good portion of the projects done, I will be developing this new series of posts that will backtrack and document each of the projects that we have tackled, and will even discuss future projects that we would like to accomplish.  Giving you a glimpse of what we have been doing, how we have been doing it, and why as we green this energy pig.

So follow my home renovations as I walk the walk and show that green/sustainable construction can happen on the typical working families budget and I look forward to the discussions that this may create.

-Josh

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has their Walk The Walk campaign advocating for all design projects within the office to be green/high performance projects.  But that is focusing on what a design professional should be considering when designing/implementing projects.  But it does nothing for advocating our lifestyles and what we do with our own home improvement projects.  We should be leading by example.  If you truly believe in the mission, you should be taking what you do in the office and bring it home.  So the question is, with some of the details that you draw/build for your projects, would you use them on your own home?  In essence if you consider yourself a green building professional in any way, you should bring you knowledge and expertise to your own home projects and use your own home as a living laboratory.

Yes, like some of our clients, we may have limited budgets, and also cursed with seeing all these great products or cool ideas that we would love to use.  However that should not stop us from spending few extra bucks to improve the efficiency of our home, or buy the low VOC paint, adhesive or other materials.  Because we know the benefits these stratagies have on lowering our utility bill and carbon footprint, as well as improving the indoor air quality and the quality of our families lives.

So follow me as I lead by example with my own home.  Turning my energy hog home into a lean, mean, green machine.  Improving the energy efficiency, the indoor air quality and the overall lifestyle of my family.

-Josh

Granted this video is the next episode in the e2 design series, it speaks to a previous post (here) about my offices commitment to enter the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge and social responsibility.