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Glossary

Although "green" is the current buzzword many in the Dallas-Fort Worth building industry use regarding their products, much of the green building in DFW is actually brown.

Single-family homes, often touted by the residential construction and real estate industries as the American dream, are fast becoming the brown American nightmare.

The green building industry is brown when:

1. It builds massive homes. Green is first and foremost small. Larger homes use proportionally more materials and other resources, then consume more energy to operate..

2. It contributes to urban sprawl. It is not green to replace parks and farms with concrete.

3. It builds new houses rather than remodeling existing homes.

4. It destroys an existing home to use the land for a new house, normally much larger than the structure destroyed.

5. It builds homes that barely endure for a few decades rather than hundreds of years. The first law of sustainability is durability.

6. It builds homes that include large numbers of electric appliances and gadgets. Even when individual devices have increased energy efficiency, they cause an overall increase in power use.

7. It builds ugly homes. People take care of beautiful homes. Thus, they endure.

8. It builds homes with air leaks.

And what about the press?

The Dallas Morning News included a 14,000 square foot home in Addison when writing about "green" homes. In an article entitled Green Homebuilding Goes Big, journalist Stewart Lytle wrote on July 18, 2008, that this "five-bedroom, nine-bath home will consume about $1,000 a month in electricity, which includes powering its 11 plasma TVs, a large media room, and nine refrigerators."

Lytle also wrote that the builders believe the house "will be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) level home." There was no confirmation of this from the U.S. Green Building Council in the article, but, in the opinion of this environmentalist, LEED certification for this house does not fall within the realm of reason.

Can a home with nine refrigerators and $1000 utility bills actually be LEED certified?

Many of the metroplex's builders and architects sincerely want to create earth-friendly homes. Unfortunately, they often produce homes and buildings that actually make environmental problems worse.

Air Leakage
Brown Building

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