Earth-Friendly Living Starts Under Your Own Roof

Earth Month (April) is an opportune time for resolving to live more sustainably, including in your own dwelling. When designing and building a home, consider its eco-footprint, advises Nathan Kipnis, founder and principal of Kipnis Architecture + Planning, Evanston, and co-chair of the National AIA 2030 Commitment group, which helps architects design full Net Zero buildings by 2030.

With the start of the busy spring real estate season, it’s also a prime time for home design and construction, providing an opportunity for homeowners to learn about and weigh sustainable elements. “Each site will be slightly different, and each homeowner may have different goals for their sustainability plan. It is not critical to do everything -- rather, do what you can and what makes the most sense,” Kipnis says.

There are several aspects of a home that can be designed to be both resilient – able to withstand extremes of weather and nature, for example – and more environmentally friendly and efficient, he adds:

Powered Up: From a carbon standpoint, energy efficiency is key and should be designed as a system. “You can’t just install more efficient windows and think that will work. There needs to be a careful assessment of the perimeter of the house, the walls, floor and ceiling,” Kipnis says. “We like to start by looking at as many ‘passive’ strategies as possible. How can we maximize natural ventilation and natural daylighting? How is the building oriented not only to capture views, but also from a passive solar standpoint?”

From a whole house perspective, the insulation system may need to be improved, and the house “air sealed”, sealing all the areas where air can leak air out. The mechanical system should be extremely efficient with smart thermostat controls, while a proper ventilation system ties it together.

Feel the Pane: Thanks to advancements in window technologies, glass can be specified by its location/orientation in the home to block solar heat gain. Along with overhangs, the amount of solar gain can be fine-tuned to allow warmth in the winter and block it in the summer. “Specifying glass like this is essentially a no-cost solution,” adds Kipnis.

Inside Information: A low-carbon, healthy interior can include features like no or low-VOC paints and adhesives, good natural and mechanical ventilation and more sustainably produced or sourced furniture. “There are other things to look at, including lighting systems, transportation choices, appliance selections, smart home technologies,” Kipnis says. “It can seem overwhelming, but when you tackle this system by system, it can be very manageable. This is true of both existing and new homes.”

Kipnis, whose firm was recently named one of the nation’s best 25 environmentally-friendly architecture firms, says that more people are embracing sustainable home design at the same time technologies are enabling better efficiencies. “We are currently working around having our homes be 70-percent better in terms of energy use, compared to a baseline home from 2003. The goal,” he says, “is to be ‘net positive’, where the home actually produces more than it uses and provides the excess power back onto the electric grid.”