Beauty or Performance – You Have to Choose One – #Greenbuild 2021

At a presentation at the Cincinnati Civic Garden Center several years ago, we found out what our number of Earths was for our lifestyle. Were you a vegetarian? Take the bus? Wear second hand clothes? The young lady that won used 1/4th of an Earth for her lifestyle. I use 1/10 of the carbon as the average person. Carbon offsets are $31 per year.

What does Performance look like to you?

What does Beauty look like to you?

Currently we are using nine Earths for our resources. Five percent of the Earth’s population use 80 percent of the Earth resources.

If you are clever enough, you can live off the grid in Cincinnati. Recently we toured a $450,000 new construction home in an urban neighborhood is off the grid with an 8 kW solar array and a Tesla Powerwall. The 1,500 sf, two bedroom home is all electric. There’s no basement or attic. The home owner is very frugal and conscious of her choices. The next step is to get off of the city water and sewer system. We know of one home that is capturing rainwater and treating it to potable standards in Cincinnati, strictly illegal.

What would a beautiful, substainable (high performance) home look like? Solar Panels, Composting Toilet, Urine to Potable Water Converter, Rainwater Harvesting, Walkable Neighborhood, Made of Wood, Passive Solar Design, Captures Prevailing Winds for Cooling, Geo-Thermal Wells for Heating, Wood Pellet Stove, Not Painted, Stone and Mud Foundation, Limestone Slab Roof with Cement & Whitewash, Hay Bale Wall Insulation, Downwind Walls Open To Create Summer Breezes, Pollinator Garden Fertilized with Humanure, Vegetable Garden Fertilized with Compost, Chickens, …