"Advice for Greenies in a Complicated World"

Dear JJ:

Since my neighbor and I are both tearing down our leaky '50s beach houses and building state-of-the-art green ones, we're having a friendly competition to see who can build the most energy-efficient house. How should we measure, though? My house is 8200 ft² and his is 7800 ft², and I have 4 kids and he has 3, and so on. Help!

Jared
Malibu, CA

Dear Jared:

Great question!--and a common dilemma for Greenies. As you imply, you can take one of two basic approaches to reductions in energy use when you build a new green house or green up your old one.

You can try to use as little energy as possible. Or you can use as much energy as you want to, but try to save as much energy as possible whenever you use it.

Each method has its pros and cons.

The obvious advantage to the first approach--to use as little total energy as possible--is that you'll use as little energy as possible. The chief drawback, however, is that asking how much energy you need to use can make your green-home decisions exceptionally complicated.

How many square feet do you actually need to build? Does each kid need a separate bathroom? How many TVs, and should the screens be 2 ft. or 8 ft. wide--and what about in the bathrooms, guest houses, pool houses, and doghouses (Puppy Bowl!!)?

Take such questions to an extreme, and you're out of the 'Bu and in a one-bedroom next to the freeway. Take this method far enough, though, and you're out of the Home section in the New York Times.

The second approach, on the other hand--to save as much energy as possible whenever you use it--offers several real advantages. To begin with, the decisions you have to make are comparatively simple and straightforward. You don't have to ask how many TVs you need--or whether your dog can get by without a DVR. You just have to ask which Energy Star brand of TV or DVR to purchase, and then buy as many as you want of them.

In fact, every time the DVR fires itself up to record Treme, your super-energy-efficient TV and DVR will save a lot of energy. If you buy 28 TVs instead of 7, you can save up to 4 times as much energy.

So with the second method, the more energy you use, the more you can save. Which is why this often tends to be the preferred method for Greenie homeowners with larger houses.

Another advantage to this second approach is that it's just a lot more positive. You save energy. You don't not use energy. You're doing something versus not doing something.

Which makes it a lot more tangible and rewarding. It's a lot less satisfying--and a lot harder to see the difference you're making for all of us--when you say, "Here's the 3000 square feet I decided not to build" than to say, "Here's the solar-powered, bamboo-paneled screening room with smart windows, recessed LED lighting, and a remote-controlled thermostat."

And the disadvantages? Well, with this second method, you may or may not actually use less total energy than you did in your previous or unrenovated house--especially before you pay off the energy costs of the construction. Also, with a beach house, it's always important to remember that if you only use it 25 days a year, then you might not be able to use as much energy, and therefore save as much energy, as you can with your main residence.

And finally, remember that this method does tend to work better if you have a larger house. How about if you already live, say, in a one-bedroom in Eagle Rock or Pacoima? Since you need to use a lot of energy to save large quantities of energy--and since you'll have to buy new green appliances and smart up your windows--this second method tends to be less rewarding for folks without significant financial resources.

Unfortunately, if you don't have the resources to use significant quantities of energy to begin with, then the first method--to use as little total energy as possible--might be more feasible, but it still won't allow you to contribute very significantly to the efforts to stop climate change.

In JJ's opinion, we need to give a lot more thought generally to how absolutely everyone in our society can reap the civic, social, and psychic benefits of greening up one's house and home.

That's grist for future columns, though. Good luck with the contest!

Green Me Up, JJ is an occasional advice column. You can e-mail JJ with your burning questions about how to act and think environmentally smart in our complicated 21st-century world.

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