The stories I’ve written in the Midori Haus book chronicles dual transformation: one of the physical building and another of the mindset of the homeowners. In chapter 2, you'll get the feel of homeowner mindset transformation. Excerpts below illustrate two shifts that took place before we even started the design phase.

In 2009, we lived in a condominium. It offered limited ability to make changes to the building to increase our standard of living and lower our carbon footprint. Initially, we thought creating a green, sustainable home meant building a new house from scratch. There was an implicit assumption of green buildings being new and good. Over time, we shifted toward remodeling an old building . This was our first mindset transformation.

… the inventory of unbuilt lots in a walkable area was quite limited and it was just a matter of time before we shifted gears to looking at houses in the right location that could be remodeled. In a way that’s more green than building a brand new house because remodeling reuses existing materials. For example, the utility connections are all in place. These connection costs are not trivial. In our area, it costs over $11,000 to install water service at a new house built on a vacant lot. Charges for the water meter and inspection are extra. Then there is the labor and material cost to trench and install the pipes and fittings, which may be another $10,000 depending on the distance between the house and the water main. That’s just for water. Sewer, gas, and electricity each have their own connection fees and construction fees. So there are some savings from having existing infrastructure connections despite paying a slightly higher price for having a house on the lot.

Another transformation took place slowly, as we learned about due diligence before real estate purchase. We were quite naïve in 2004 when we were planning to buy some land to build on.

… buying so much land so close to down­town Santa Cruz for a price of a small house seemed like a dream. Back then we were rather naïve. Instead of doing due diligence with a soils report or researching zoning to see if the lot was build­able, we did silly things like driving out there late at night and sitting on a log to see if we would see the ghost lady that suppos­edly haunted the area. Getting caught up in Karsten’s enthusiasm, we were convinced that we could do this project fast and cheap. Because we didn’t know what we didn’t know, we floated in a nice dream for a while. It was a perfect escape from the daily grind of managing projects and people.

Our real estate education was greatly aided by a mentor. Gary Ransone’s unique combination of qualifications (real estate license, general contractor’s license, and construction attorney license) guided us to perform sophisticated due diligence.

… Gary went over and beyond what a typical real estate would do and visited the building depart­ment at the City of Santa Cruz to look up building permit records to see if the small addition containing a bathroom and a kitchenette was legit or not. This was a precautionary step to see if we would run into permitting issues when we submitted our plans for the remodel.

… Gary wanted us to have the property boundaries confirmed and have the records “clean” by confirming the mutual easement on the property boundary. This was prompted by the presence of a duplex garage and a shared driveway with the neighbor to the west.

You'll see a summary of lessons learned at the end of each chapter. One lesson I’ve often passed on to others is to have a general contractor look over the house before making an offer buy the house.

I would love to hear what you found useful in chapter 2 of Midori Haus book. Please let me know by commenting below. Thanks!

In November 2017, you’ll be able to hold a copy of my book in your hands and enjoy the vicarious experience of transforming an old house. The book is titled, Midori Haus: Transformation from Old House to Green Future with Passive House. Published by Hybrid Global Publishing, it is available in both paperback and e-book.

It’s a story of an ordinary house having extraordinary results using materials available in the market today. If you have aspirations of making your house green and sustainable, you’ll enjoy this case study told through the lens of a homeowner. It’s written in a conversational way as if you’re listening to a friend over a cup of tea. For example, in chapter 4 you’ll find the answers to the question, “What questions did you ask when choosing your architect?”

If you’re wondering about how to apply your collection of notes, neat ideas, and file full of green products brochures, you just may find yourself in chapter 3. At that point we were running the risk of creating a house with a hodgepodge of green ideas that may not have worked well together. Fortunately, we found a very good international building standard that looked at the building as a whole. Using the energy efficiency focus as the core of our project, we managed to avoid the green hodgepodge.

Did we do everything right? No. At one point we naively thought that we would arrive at a single logical solution if we spoke to enough experts to solve a problem. That was not the case. We stopped construction for months while we wrestled with this issue in chapter 13. We learned the hard lesson—when expert opinions diverge, it’s up to the homeowners (who hold the purse string and who will literally live with the decision) to choose the path.

I wrote this book for you. It’s for those of you who want to live in a healthy, comfortable, green home and are gathering ideas for your project. It’s also for architects and contractors who want to share the Passive House standard with their clients.

Thank you for reading this post.

I feel good when I have more things in the blue recycling bin than in the brown garbage bin when I roll them out to the curbside. For many years my recycling knowledge and effort ended at the blue bin. That changed when I took a tour of the Recycling Center at the Resource Recovery Facility operated by the City of Santa Cruz. This is nestled in the Wilder Ranch State Park, a few miles west of where I live. The facility sits on a hill, about 300 feet above sea level, with almost a direct view of the 3-Mile Beach. They offer public tours periodically.

At the beginning of the tour I heard, “When in doubt, throw it out.” I was shocked. Still, by the end of the 90-minute tour, I understood why. Here are five things I learned from the Recycling Tour. 

1. Plastic Bags

Some plastic bags are recyclable and some are not. So, how do I decide which one to recycle and which ones to toss into the trash? I’ve read the guidelines printed on the colorful flyers that arrive in the snail mail, but I could never remember all the rules and exceptions. “These plastic bags are recyclable,” said Leslie, our tour guide who works for the City of Santa Cruz, as she held up some used plastic bags. “These are stretchy and don’t make a lot of noise when you scrunch them.” Then she picked up a different bunch of used plastic bags and scrunched them and said, “These are not recyclable.” Sure enough, they were louder and stiffer with no stretch to them. That’s easy to remember! I can use the scrunch and stretch test from now on. I just need to remember the plastic bag protocol: place a bunch of the plastic bags in one bag and tie them. 

Soft and stretchy bags on the left are recyclable

Notice the bags within bags in the bales 

2. Clamshell Food Containers

What surprised me was the next thing she picked up. A clear, clamshell plastic container that is ubiquitous in stores. “These are not recyclable,” she said and I gulped. I’ve always put those clear plastic containers used to hold strawberries, blueberries, and Persian cucumbers in the recycling bin. Those need to go into the trash bin. Ugh! I don’t think I will completely avoid buying them in the future, but I will definitely think about the trash impact before buying them. “It’s about making trade-offs in different areas of life,” said Leslie. We can choose to do better in one area and worse in another since we can’t be perfect all the time.

3. Limited Landfill

So what is recyclable and what’s not? As I looked around the room and noted informational posters, I realized that it’s not an arbitrary decision made by the city government. It has to do with what the market will buy. One ton of metal could be sold for about $1,700. The price of plastic fluctuates with the price of oil. If the price of oil is low then the manufacturer may choose to buy oil to create new plastic products, but if the price of oil is high buying recyclable plastics become attractive. So the demand for used plastic and the price of oil have an inverse relationship. Right now, one pound of rigid plastic (like plastic buckets and cheap lawn furniture) will fetch  four-cents. Same with paper. One ton of used paper will be sold between $72 and $84 or $0.4 per pound. The sales price for used paper and plastic seem hardly worth the effort. But the reason to recycle is not financial. The motivation is driven by the need to divert waste from the landfill as this coastal landfill site has a limited capacity.

Metal bale

Plastic bale

Paper bale

4. Manufacturing Enables Recycling

Recycle means to treat or process waste material so that the material can be useful again. Used glass bottles and jars are cleaned, crushed, and melted to create jars and bottles. Used aluminum cans are cleaned, melted, formed into large blocks, rolled out, and made into cans and other containers. Used paper is cleaned, pulped, de-inked, and made into another paper product. Used plastic have a more complex process and there are different types of plastic that are commonly recycled: (1) PET or PETE are used for soft drinks, water, peanut butter jars;  (2) HDPE is used for milk jugs and trash bags; (3) PVC is used for piping; (4) LDPE is used for frozen food bags and flexible container lids.

Another way to look at recycling is the willingness and ability of manufacturers to take consumer waste into their manufacturing process. To make this feasible, an infrastructure to collect, sort, and market recyclable waste must be in place. What makes recycling work in my city is the presence of facilities in the Bay Area that use these materials to make their products, and that there is demand for them (such as bottles used by wineries in Northern California). I realized that this infrastructure and end products determine what is accepted as recyclable material in our community. I’ve often wondered why some cities don't offer curbside recycling service, but now I see that collecting recyclables from the blue bins is just first step in the recycling process. Without the investment in sorting, transporting, processing infrastructure, and demand from manufacturers recycling is not feasible. 

5. Avoid the Jam

What the Resource Recovery Facility does is the first step in the recycling process. The post-consumer recyclable materials are brought into the facility to be sorted and baled. The sorting machinery separates the metals, glass, plastic, and paper into different areas. Human intervention removes non-recyclable and contaminated items from the work stream. The conveyor belt moves fast. Trained eyes and split-second decision of the workers keep the flow moving. The better job we do in placing items in the blue recycling bin at home, the less intervention is needed at the recycling site.

Machinery jams every so often because of tangling items and small bits. There is nothing like seeing the line stop to sear an impression. I’ll make sure I won’t throw garden hose (tangling non-recyclable item) or tiny bottle caps (things that cause jamming) into the recycling bin. At the end of the tour, I appreciated the wisdom of the phrase, “When in doubt, throw it out.”

Garden hoses (tangles) can cause problems

Sorting machinery

Let's Be a Conscious Consumer

If I look upstream from the activities at the Resource Recovery Facility, I see opportunities for making a difference. If I have a mixed material item like the can of coffee beans from Trader Joe’s, I can choose to separate the metal from paper and put it in the blue recycling bin or throw the entire can in the trash. Better yet, I can choose to buy coffee in bulk at the grocery store and avoid deconstructing the coffee packaging. Bringing my own jar and re-using it continuously avoids recycling the coffee packaging all together!

We can choose to be a conscious consumer when an opportunity presents itself. Maybe not buying something impulsively (like a cool kitchen gadget or yet another intriguing book) is another opportunity to be a conscious consumer. How would you make your personal trade-off decisions to be a conscious consumer?

Coffee can in its entirety is not recyclable

Separate paper and metal to recycle

Are you curious about what can be recycled during construction? Take a look at this post I wrote about what we recycled during the deconstruction phase of Midori Haus remodel project.

You can find the  list of questions we asked homeowners during the reference visits or reference calls attached here. Next to each question, I’ve listed the reason why we asked that question as well as follow-up probing questions. Keep in mind that homeowners who recently completed their project will have the cost and project experience fresh in their mind. The homeowners who have been living in their renovated house will have rich experience of how the material, appliance, or products have held up over time. You can use these questions or adapt them to your situation.

The list of questions we asked architects and contractors during the interview process is attached here. Next to each question, I’ve listed the reason why we asked that question as well as follow-up probing questions. You can use these questions or adapt them to your situation.

The list of questions linked from paragraphs above can be found at the end of Chapter 4 in the Midori Haus book.​ Here is a short excerpt from that chapter.

When you visit a home, don't forget to note what your skin, nose, and eyes are sensing. It's one thing to have data from gadgets (temperature, humidity, air movement, air quality, sound, smell), but nothing can replace what your body is telling you.  

Below are some insightful questions we’ve been asked while giving public tours of our house. I wish I thought of these! Share the useful question you’ve used in the comment below, if you’d like.

• What are you doing differently now that you’re cooking on an induction rather than on a gas stove?
• Is there anything else in this kitchen that would be helpful for me to see?

Several times a year, we host a tour of Midori Haus to share our knowledge and experience of remodeling an old house to be green (healthy, energy efficient, water efficient, and sustainable). We delight in explaining what Passive House is and showing how features of Midori Haus reflected Passive House principles. At the last tour, we were pleasantly surprised to learn about a cooking method that embodies Passive House principles: energy efficient cooking within airtight vessel with good insulation.

One of the visitors brought along a thermal cooker. This is an efficient appliance that uses very little energy and effort. The food is cooked in a thermal cooker pot on a stovetop (gas, electric, or induction) and brought to boil for about 10 minutes. Then this pot is inserted into a thermos-like enclosure that cooks the food with residual heat.

Brilliant, isn’t it?

I used to think slow cookers or crockpots were pretty energy efficient. Now, I can see that slow cookers are like coffee makers (coffee stays warm by sipping electricity) and thermal cookers are like a thermos (coffee stays warm for a long time without electricity). When the hot food is placed in the well-insulated airtight enclosure it only loses heat at the rate of 4 ~ 5 degrees Fahrenheit per hour. If the temperature of food in the inner pot is 200 degrees when it’s taken off the stovetop and placed into the outer container, eight hours later it would be about 160 degrees, still plenty hot. Because there is no additional heat applied to the cooker, it won’t burn. I find this feature attractive since I’ve burned edges of stews in my slow cooker.

History and Food for Thought

The principle of thermal cooking has been around for a long time. I invite you to read this article from Low Tech Magazine, "If We Insulate Our Houses, Why Not Our Cooking Pots? " It explains why cooking is so inefficient and covers the history of fireless cooking with striking images. If you prefer to watch a short video instead of reading about low energy cooking history, then take a look this video titled, “A Bit of History About Thermal Cooking.”

Selection Criteria

Our visitor recommended the Tiger brand of thermal cooker, which she brought. I placed the inner pot onto my induction cooktop to see if it was compatible with induction. It was. What else shall I consider before buying one? Performance (keeping food hot longer), durability (quality materials and good construction), and cost are what I typically look for, but these two videos gave me further insight:

Ecopot Thermal Cooker Comparison video advises to look at these characteristics:

· Pot’s locking mechanism

· Food cooking capacity

· Quality of inner pot

· Heat retention technology

· Technology used to avoid aroma bypass

· Ability to reheat food to 70C (above food safety standard of 60C)

Cindy Miller, author of Let's Make Sense of Thermal Cooking Cookbook, advises people to choose models that retain heat for 4 – 8 hours. The insulation type and capacity is explained in a show and tell fashion in this Types of Thermal Cooker  video.

I’ve heard that many recipes can be adapted for the thermal cooker. Perhaps I’ll try some of these recipes from Delishably when I get one.

Last month, I spoke at the KMH Women’s group event in Honolulu. Knowing that Hawaii imports fossil fuels to generate most of the electricity in the state, I wanted to share as much energy savings tips with the audience. I did a simple experiment to convey why induction cooktop made sense for the people in Hawaii to make it relatable and interesting to those who want to do the right thing for their family and home.

Armed with measuring cups, kitchen thermometer, and a stopwatch, I measured how long it took to boil two cups of water in a kettle. First, I did this in my home in Santa Cruz California on an induction cooktop. It took 2 minutes and 56 seconds. The air temperature in front of the kettle went up by 1.1 degrees, from 71.6 degrees Fahrenheit to 72.7.

Before

After

Time to boil water

Then I did the same thing at my dad’s place in Honolulu Hawaii on an electric resistance cooktop. It took 6 minutes and 23 seconds. It took more than twice as long! The air temperature in front of the kettle went up by 1.3 degrees, from 77.4 degrees Fahrenheit to 78.7. Since this was in the cooler month of January, the increase in temperature wasn’t uncomfortable. Had this been done in August, I would have broken a sweat because my dad’s place doesn't have air conditioning. In homes that do have air conditioning, cooking during the summer on an electric resistance cooktop would make the air conditioner work even harder to counteract the heat.

Before

After

Time to boil water

Before you run out and buy one, check to see if there is adequate capacity in the wiring and electrical service to your house to install the induction cooktop model of choice. I invite you to read this article from The Induction Site to get the details.

When you start shopping for induction cooktop, the price tag might scare you. Especially if your point of reference is electric resistance free standing stove that is about $1,500 cheaper than induction. It seems expensive, right? Before you turn away, I invite you to consider the lifecycle cost. Since the savings come from the on-going electricity savings, let’s look at how much energy savings would make this higher initial cost worthwhile.

One thing that people fuss over when making a decision to go with induction cooktop is the cost of replacing the pots and pans. Once again, I invite you to read the cookware article from The Induction Site to get expert tips on why you may need a different cookware and how to shop for new cookware. I didn't spend a fortune on new pots and pans. In my case, I kept my cast iron skillets and only bought a couple of sauce pans.

Bottom line, switching from electric resistance cooktop to induction cooktop makes sense, especially in a climate that uses air conditioning. To move forward with confidence, be sure to research the electrical requirements of installing an induction cooktop, calculate the cost savings, and check your pots and pans.

I get that. Running various what-if scenarios using software makes sense. What I didn’t get was what these numbers meant. I wasn’t impressed when I first heard of 15 kWh/m2 for heating and cooling per year to keep the house at comfortable 68°F. Without context the impressive benchmark information can simply breeze into one ear and escape from the other ear without the light bulb of comprehension turning on. It clicked for me when I saw the results from the case studies of homes built to Passive House Standard. Over and over these houses showed impressive results: 80 percent less energy use throughout the year than new homes built in the conventional way. It’s pretty convincing when the source of the data is the utility bills and the logs of temperature data corresponding to the billing period, which showed that the house was indeed comfortable. It wasn’t a case of vigilant people piling on sweaters and turning down the heat in the winter or living in a sauna during the summer for the sake of energy efficiency. They were just as comfortable, if not more, as people living in homes using 80 percent more energy.