Green building for beginners

摘要

What does "green building" really mean? You can choose trendy interior-finish materials like bamboo flooring or earth plaster, but the choices you make on interior finishes are unlikely to matter much from an environmental perspective-especially compared to the energy-efficiency decisions that affect the whole house. Magazines, books, and websites offer conflicting information. One might tell you that a green home should include spray-foam insulation, a tankless water heater, and a geothermal heating system. Then you visit another website, where you learn that spray foam is a dangerous petrochemical, tankless water heaters are overpriced gadgets, and "geothermal" systems are not really geothermal. At this point, you're probably tempted to go back to the website that told you to buy a tankless water heater. At least that advice was easy to understand.