Sustainable Building

In a former life and employment period I did remodeling.   I loved it, but always hated the amount of trash created, the quality of the wood I was getting, the caustic products and the idea of more electricity, more water, more waste.  It never slowed me down, cause I had to make a living, but I was always interested in green building practices.

How does this relate to the normal dude?  Well, we all gotta live somewhere right?

Currently we're in the process of buying a home.  One of thew things we want to do is finish part of the basement.  We need to move my office and create a soundproof media and music room (I play guitar and my wife would like some relief).  We were talking about what products to use...  My wife asked about wood for framing.  I said no.  We're gonna use steel.  The current steel used for steel framing is a gigantic percentage of recycled steel.  That means no new strip mines, less shipping from Japan, and, in the end, it's recyclable again!  The cost of materials isn't that much more and the labor cost is less.  As Harry homeowner, you don't even need a big fancy saw, you can use tin snips!

This looks like some good reading -http://www.toolbase.org/Design-Construction-Guides/Exterior-Walls/steel-stud-guide  It's got a lot of info and details.

One thing I've been interested in for years is composite decking.  A lot of composite decking is post-consumer recycled plastic... but then I heard about this wood called Ipe (pronounce eePay).  It's super hard, insect resistant, rot resistant.  I thought, man, there's no way it's new growth, but I was wrong.  It's supposedly very sustainable!  It grows in South American swamps (the only big roadblock here is the shipping from South America!).  Because it grows in these swamps it is impervious to water.  One other big drawback is it's hell on tool blades.  You are promised to go through a lot of blades with the stuff... but it is beautiful!  I'm gonna do more research on it for you guys.

From http://www.ipe-deck.com - Check them out if you can!

What I'm trying to think about here is that little choices I make might make a big difference down the road... or down river or in my kids or grandkids lives.  So, if you have some project coming up, tell me about what decisions you might make.  I'm interested to hear some of the logic.