Over the years the GBRC has held education seminars and has participated in some presentations at other locations in Houston. And as of 2020, we have held webinars online as a result of Covid-19. Many of the sessions were recorded, and are available to watch from our archives. And the archives all have the visual presentations available for viewing. Our largest attendance was our Earth Day presentation in 2015 regarding Tiny Houses with 250 in the audience.
Hemp is a rapidly renewable agricultural source of fiber for the building and fabric industries that is drought and pest resistant, giving it an excellent carbon footprint. It is new to the domestic market and worth learning more about it.
Energy dashboards are beginning to become mainstream in commercial buildings, with residential lagging. This dashboard is off to a great start as it ties to actual usage data from SmartMeterTexas. The idea is that homeowners will choose to manage their energy use more wisely if they have real data presented to them in a coherent fashion. The dashboard indicates comparison graphing from past usage to current along with the change in temperature between the usages. Other screens have other educational energy purposes.
Resilient Home Guidelines:
"Our goal is to enhance your understanding of your home's resiliency to help you make choices to improve your situation."
‘Green Jobs’ are all over the internet. What is the true intention of the term? Clearly, installing solar panels is a green job, but are green jobs limited to renewable energy positions? Steve Stelzer has researched this subject and has a multi-faceted presentation to help people understand the various green and not-so-green interpretations out there in the job market. In addition, he has some suggestions for “greening up” one’s conventional job.
Pre-fabricated housing is beginning to become mainstream again. Mobile homes have been an industry for a while now, but shipping pre-assembled parts of a conventional house to be configured onsite is catching up. Cost has always been a concern, but the quality advantage is becoming a sales tool now that conventional housing is facing challenges on all fronts. Box Prefab is a Houston-based entity with founders from the design professions who wanted to more tightly hold the quality of the finished product rather than hand that off to a conventional builder.
Lighting with all its positive benefits can be installed just plain wrong. It should have a clear purpose, directed where it is needed, no brighter than necessary, used only when it is useful, and we should use warmer colors where possible. You’ve heard about dark skies and light pollution, but did you know about the danger of excessive glare? Lighting consumes energy and costs money and is regulated by the energy code. Nobody wants too much light shining in their bedroom at night.
Net Zero Energy (NZE) has developed from a fringe movement to approaching mainstream. Here’s a definition: "A Zero Carbon Building is a highly energy-efficient building that produces on-site, or procures, carbon-free renewable energy or high-quality carbon offsets in an amount sufficient to offset the annual carbon emissions associated with building materials and operations." Washington, DC actually incorporated Appendix Z to their Energy Code to delineate requirements for achieving an NZE classification for a DC building.
In addition to this document, you can also view this video from Energy.gov more information: