Green, Newton-style

by | Feb 12, 2012 | Newton | 8 comments

Hate to be a wet blanket, but is it reasonable to call a 3,800 sq. ft., single-family, detached tear-down on a 15,000 sq. ft. lot green?

 

8 Comments

  1. Ted Hess-Mahan
    Ted Hess-Mahan on February 12, 2012 at 8:57 pm

    I was kinda thinking the same thing. #greatmindsthinkalike

  2. Kim
    Kim on February 13, 2012 at 12:52 am

    No, you had it right the first time. You are being a wet blanket.

  3. Eric Miller
    Eric Miller on February 13, 2012 at 9:17 am

    Wet blanket indeed. If it does not conform to how Mr. Roche thinks the rest of us should live, it must be bad. Moreover, it should be the job of the state to ensure that it is changed.

  4. schlock
    schlock on February 13, 2012 at 9:36 am

    How does Setti for Gov sound?

  5. Sean
    Sean on February 13, 2012 at 9:55 am

    Definitely a wet blanket, but also right on the merits.

  6. Sean
    Sean on February 13, 2012 at 9:59 am

    Eric,

    Can you clarify your comment? What do you mean it should be the job of the state to ensure that it is changed? To ensure what is changed?

  7. Dan Fahey
    Dan Fahey on February 13, 2012 at 8:35 pm

    If they are going to build a 3800 sq ft house anyway, then doing it in an energy efficient manner makes sense.

    But is 3800 sq ft necessary? I winder how big the family is?

    It reminded me in some respects of Al VGore’s home in TN, where he had this huge expeenditure for energy consumption, while being the leading voice on energy conservation.

  8. Steve Siegel
    Steve Siegel on February 14, 2012 at 12:55 am

    One of my biggest architect clients has a portfolio of large vacation homes occupied, for perhaps, 4-8 weeks a year. The architect did some soul searching and decided that calling these “green” seemed wrong, so they began to pitch themselves as designers of lasting, highly-energy-efficient homes. This supports Sean’s point, that a large new home on the site of a tear-down can hardly be called green, even if it consumes far less energy per square foot than its predecessor. Tear-downs lose LEED points, as they waste the embodied energy contained in the original construction.

    @Dan: Add John Travolta, a man flying the globe in his private 707 while lecturing about global warming, to your list of human contradictions.