Green Building Is the Life For Me . . .

So I am all about Green Building.  I am super excited about some products out there.  One is Thermocore Structural Insuated Panels for walls.  This product is cool - you send them the CAD drawings, and they build your walls at their factory - OSB with closed cell insulation, already sprayed in with the windows and doors computer cut (meaning absolutely square!) and conduit run and electrical boxes placed.  This stuff makes a very solid house, and a very tight house.  They come in and assemble your home in a couple of days!

This is what it looks like:

Another product is Superior Walls, which is a similar idea, but using precast concrete forms.  Again, all computer designed.  You can watch a cool time-lapse video here.

This stuff is not that new - but not that common in the midwest.  Norm Abrams of This Old House said he would ONLY build a new home with SIPs like Thermocore, and Superior Walls has been used on the show too.


I also really like cork flooring.  Not only is it green (cork flooring is made from the bark of cork trees, which is harvested without the trees being harmed.  The flooring is often made from the scraps from making wine corks) but it is very soft underfoot yet resiliant.  As someone whose ankles are often really sore from RA, this really appeals to me.

Plus, you can do really neat things with it.  Here's just one example:

So all this green stuff is great and I'm really excited about it.



Unfortunately, no one else involved in this build is.  Steve and his dad poo-poo the Thermocore and Superior Walls as radical newfangled nonsense.  My builder isn't sold on it either.

And Steve decided that he doesn't "like" the cork.  So ankles be damned.

Sigh.