There is no reason this building would be limited to one family. âSingle-family zoning- is an architectural description, not a proscription. No reason 2 families plus other tenants could not live here. None at all. How many would be enough for Charles? 6?, 8?, 10?
Chuck,
It would be helpful if you would enlighten us as to how many families must live in a home, and what the maximum price of the home can be, to allow it to be qualified as green, so that we too can be as woke as you.
â...the legal standards for energy consumption, methods of insulation, renewability, the substance of floors, walls, and furniture are weak or nonexistent...â
https://new.usgbc.org/leed
LEED is not generally a regulatory requirement, but it is a coherent set of standards which must be met for award of the appropriate certificate. (Any jurisdiction could write LEED into local building codes if they wish, of course.)
So, does this or doesnât it consume more energy than a standard SF home? Did it require more or less materials to build than a SF home? Is this really any less âgreenâ than its down market peers in more financially distressed neighborhoods? And why doesnât the reporter beat up on those houses? I get that the marketing is noxious, the price outrageous, but price and actual âgreennessâ are two discretely different topics of discussion, which are conflated here.
I think you're right about these Green certifications helping assuage consumer guilt, but let's also not forget how notoriously cheap the rich can be. A home with a lower operating cost will tick a few boxes for them (even if it never covers the premium they've paid for it).
I always chortle when I see ads for exotic "green" or "sustainable" resorts. What would be green is to NOT build a resort in the jungle and entice vacationers from thousands of miles away.
Iâm quite happy for the rich to build their energy efficient homes. They try out new technologies on their own dime. Some work. Some donât. But the ones that do drive down the cost of the technology. Rich people putting solar panels on their houses has helped drive down the cost of solar panels.
14 dear, it's not rich people putting solar on their houses that made panels cheaper. It's government incentives (although it should be said that the Washington State Solar Incentive did predominately go to the rich, or at least the very well off)
Charles, now that youâve had time to peruse the LEED standards to which I linked @6, perhaps you might want to consider the laws of the county in which we reside?
âAll eligible new construction projects are required to strive for LEED Platinum certification (effective August 1, 2014).
All eligible major renovation and remodel projects are required to achieve LEED Gold certification.
All capital projects that are not eligible or are limited in their ability to achieve LEED certification (e.g., infrastructure projects) must incorporate cost-effective green building and sustainable development practices using the King County Sustainable Infrastructure Scorecard and strive to achieve a Platinum level.â
This is why the Global South is still building coal plants to provide reliable, continuous electricity.
Solar and wind farms (and pumped hydro and and prototypes of alternate-technology energy storage) are just the expensive luxury toys of high-wealth colonist nations, yet another justification for oppressing the colonized. It is impossible for these bourgeois energy sources to be truly green.
The Mudede-logic is inescapable: solar and wind are not green, and will not be green until they are more affordable than coal.
Charles is reiterating a fact that we have all been intentionally ignoring: the only way to lessen our impact is to consume less. Yes, a house with green tech is better than one without, but until there are proper incentives and disincentives based on the true cost of square footage, nothing is truly green.
But the naysayers and defeatists appear on cue. What is acceptable, Charles? Oh you so woke. But capitalism!! You want us to just build normal houses, you elitist pig?!!??!
We solve it when we want to solve it, and all these obstacles vanish in the blink of an eye. Or we keep pretending that our artifically high stock prices and our artifically cheap shit from China mean we canât lift a finger to avoid planetary extinction.
â...the fact that the application of "green" materials is not universalizedâmeaning, the legal standards for energy consumption, methods of insulation, renewability, the substance of floors, walls, and furniture are weak or nonexistentââ
Thatâs actually not a âfactâ, itâs an opinion which has been stated as one. If Charles had actually cared about actual facts, he could have read the LEED standards, read the legal building codes requiring LEED certifications per building type, and come to the opposite conclusion. But he started with that conclusion â right in the very first sentence â so there was little point in his doing any actual work to obtain the actual facts which would contradict it.
@20: â...the only way to lessen our impact is to consume less...â
Hence this houseâs use of non-potable water to use less potable water; solar panels to use less electricity from the grid, and all of the other technologies employed to consume less (or less-expensive) resources. Charles doesnât want any of that to be true, so he simply hand-waves it all away and sneers at the purchase price.
There are arguments to be made for us all to be happy by consuming less. This post makes none of those arguments.
A million dollars to live NEXT TO A GAS STATION ON A BUSY INTERSECTION. Yeah, the listing on Redfin doesn't tell you that, does it. And some dumb SOB will buy it because it's close to Lake Union where his GREEN sailboat is moored.
3210 square feet. For a family of 4 (or less, more than likely). My family of 4 lives in half that and our house is great - plenty of room. The obsession in our market with bloated floor plans is pathetic. Every house I've been in that's this big - the occupants functionally use less than half the available space. This place has more driveway than yard, and no trees. Most of the backyard it would have had is covered by deck.
Frankly, it's depressing. I know it's popular, but it's pathetic.
@23
"We'd like to engage with you in creating solutions."
LOL
Chuck doesn't engage in creating solutions. He just snarks and tears down. To engage in creating solutions would be beneath him as it would require him contribute something of value.
@18 -B-: Agreed. You'll be happy to know that my choice to remain child-free is a big part of my contribution to leaving a small carbon footprint.
@19 If you truly believe that, robo, I've got the deeds to the Deception Pass and Tacoma Narrows Bridges I'd love to sell ya, all for a cool, green $2.1 million.
@24 randommonkey: Thank you for catching that.
It has long since become gospel truth at The Stranger that Seattleâs rents are so high, in part, because of the large amounts of land zoned as single-family residential. Only by re-zoning Seattle, sayeth this gospel, can rents come down again.
Therefore, Charles dutifully attacks the very idea of a single-family home being âgreen,â because there simply cannot be a justification for a single-family home. That would contradict the gospel of lower housing costs through re-zoning. It matters not that his assertions range from groundless to contrafactual, or that he lives in a less-efficient single-family home. Charles is preaching the gospel, and mere facts cannot compete.
@28: No, I get it, robo--you have no point, and apparently that's supposedly your charm. How much has the fossil fuel industry paid you? Here is why I so largely disagree with your comment @19:
Coal, in addition to being dirty, non-recyclable, and cancerous (ever hear of black lung disease?) is worthless. Stocks have plummeted. Better sources of energy (wind and solar, for two) are available, less expensive to implement, and infinitely healthier for our dying planet. And have you noticed that everything Mein Trumpfy touches turns to shit? You're welcome.
The house has three bedrooms and sits on 4,000 square feet of land. That's 1,333 square feet per occupant. There are 7.7 billion people in the world right now (and rising). If each one were to get 1,333 square feet, that works out to 10.3 trillion square feet of space or 953 billion square kilometers. The current area occupied by urban areas worldwide is 1.5 million square kilometers.
In other words, if this house weren't a bauble for the select few but the standard for humanity, it would increase our global footprint by 6358%. That's not including the roads and other infrastructure needed to get to and from the house. And I'm guessing there's not enough board timber at the bottom of the Great Salt Lake to go around, so some forests are getting cut down to build all those houses.
That doesn't sound very "green" to me.Viewed on its own, sure - it is better than your average 3,000-square foot house; but Charles's point stands: no single family residence is truly green, no matter how efficient it is on a standalone basis. Whoever buys this house is buying the illusion of sustainability, not actual sustainability. Actual sustainability might be multi-family buildings with this technology, although in all likelihood there is no sustainability with 7.7 billion in global population. We need to stop reproducing like rabbits.
It looks like a very nice house. If you had $2.1 million, it's as good a place as any to enjoy the final decade of our planet's habitability. Call Rebecca for a showing!
@32: Thank you for demonstrating that knowing how to use a calculator and knowing what the numbers mean are two entirely different things. (Youâre very good at one of those.)
âSustainableâ will mean different things in different situations. For a single-family house, this property is very sustainable. No one (except Charles and his sycophants) suggested any intent to house billions of persons in single-family homes. (There are plenty of high-rise residents, myself included, who wouldnât want to live in a single-family home under any circumstances.)
Rather than note this house is really very sustainable, and inquiring how to retrofit other local houses in this manner (and perhaps achieve cost reduction via economy of scale), all Charles (and his followers) can do is sneer, snark, and attempt insult. As noted @26, we have plenty of evidence showing how Charles has little interest in creating anything of value, be it sustainable houses or anything else.
Charles represents exactly what is wrong with America today, making assumptions and judgements based upon ignorance and false information provided by something he read on the internet. He ought to do some fact checking before he spouts off.
This homeowner is far from elitist. By choosing to reduce their impact on the environment they should be congratulated. Our society does not make it easy to be "green". It is a choice. We should all compost, recycle, reuse, refuse to buy plastic, walk or bike for transportation, etc. What example does Charles Mudede chose to set?
There is no reason this building would be limited to one family. âSingle-family zoning- is an architectural description, not a proscription. No reason 2 families plus other tenants could not live here. None at all. How many would be enough for Charles? 6?, 8?, 10?
Charles, when can we expect you to address the recent declines in Seattle's residential real estate market?
Iâm sure theyâre planning on stocking the garage with an F-350, a Jeep with a raised air intake, and a Hummer.
Hate on the rich all you want, but you canât increase the efficiency and scale of green products without producing them.
Chuck,
It would be helpful if you would enlighten us as to how many families must live in a home, and what the maximum price of the home can be, to allow it to be qualified as green, so that we too can be as woke as you.
â...the legal standards for energy consumption, methods of insulation, renewability, the substance of floors, walls, and furniture are weak or nonexistent...â
https://new.usgbc.org/leed
LEED is not generally a regulatory requirement, but it is a coherent set of standards which must be met for award of the appropriate certificate. (Any jurisdiction could write LEED into local building codes if they wish, of course.)
So, does this or doesnât it consume more energy than a standard SF home? Did it require more or less materials to build than a SF home? Is this really any less âgreenâ than its down market peers in more financially distressed neighborhoods? And why doesnât the reporter beat up on those houses? I get that the marketing is noxious, the price outrageous, but price and actual âgreennessâ are two discretely different topics of discussion, which are conflated here.
That house is on my street. Fun fact not revealed in the photos: it's next to a Shell station.
So, the takeaway is that developers of luxury properties shouldn't bother with sustainable, energy efficient design?
You know what has a low carbon footprint?
Poverty, especially the type created by communism and socialism.
I think you're right about these Green certifications helping assuage consumer guilt, but let's also not forget how notoriously cheap the rich can be. A home with a lower operating cost will tick a few boxes for them (even if it never covers the premium they've paid for it).
I always chortle when I see ads for exotic "green" or "sustainable" resorts. What would be green is to NOT build a resort in the jungle and entice vacationers from thousands of miles away.
Just for clarification, Charles lives in a single family home......all......by........himself.
Think about that next time you read his BS.
Iâm quite happy for the rich to build their energy efficient homes. They try out new technologies on their own dime. Some work. Some donât. But the ones that do drive down the cost of the technology. Rich people putting solar panels on their houses has helped drive down the cost of solar panels.
Would this fall under the heading Fake Intellectualism?
14 dear, it's not rich people putting solar on their houses that made panels cheaper. It's government incentives (although it should be said that the Washington State Solar Incentive did predominately go to the rich, or at least the very well off)
That, and letting foreign panels into the US.
Charles, now that youâve had time to peruse the LEED standards to which I linked @6, perhaps you might want to consider the laws of the county in which we reside?
âAll eligible new construction projects are required to strive for LEED Platinum certification (effective August 1, 2014).
All eligible major renovation and remodel projects are required to achieve LEED Gold certification.
All capital projects that are not eligible or are limited in their ability to achieve LEED certification (e.g., infrastructure projects) must incorporate cost-effective green building and sustainable development practices using the King County Sustainable Infrastructure Scorecard and strive to achieve a Platinum level.â
https://kingcounty.gov/depts/dnrp/solid-waste/programs/green-building/county-green-building/green-building-ordinance.aspx
So, what part of the LEED standards, or their legal implementation by
There are too many humans on this planet.
Coal is a lot more affordable than solar or wind.
This is why the Global South is still building coal plants to provide reliable, continuous electricity.
Solar and wind farms (and pumped hydro and and prototypes of alternate-technology energy storage) are just the expensive luxury toys of high-wealth colonist nations, yet another justification for oppressing the colonized. It is impossible for these bourgeois energy sources to be truly green.
The Mudede-logic is inescapable: solar and wind are not green, and will not be green until they are more affordable than coal.
Charles is reiterating a fact that we have all been intentionally ignoring: the only way to lessen our impact is to consume less. Yes, a house with green tech is better than one without, but until there are proper incentives and disincentives based on the true cost of square footage, nothing is truly green.
But the naysayers and defeatists appear on cue. What is acceptable, Charles? Oh you so woke. But capitalism!! You want us to just build normal houses, you elitist pig?!!??!
We solve it when we want to solve it, and all these obstacles vanish in the blink of an eye. Or we keep pretending that our artifically high stock prices and our artifically cheap shit from China mean we canât lift a finger to avoid planetary extinction.
Keep slinging the truth, Charles.
@10- the takeaway (I believe) is that no one should build luxury housing because those who do so are purely evil capitallist pigs.
â...the fact that the application of "green" materials is not universalizedâmeaning, the legal standards for energy consumption, methods of insulation, renewability, the substance of floors, walls, and furniture are weak or nonexistentââ
Thatâs actually not a âfactâ, itâs an opinion which has been stated as one. If Charles had actually cared about actual facts, he could have read the LEED standards, read the legal building codes requiring LEED certifications per building type, and come to the opposite conclusion. But he started with that conclusion â right in the very first sentence â so there was little point in his doing any actual work to obtain the actual facts which would contradict it.
@20: â...the only way to lessen our impact is to consume less...â
Hence this houseâs use of non-potable water to use less potable water; solar panels to use less electricity from the grid, and all of the other technologies employed to consume less (or less-expensive) resources. Charles doesnât want any of that to be true, so he simply hand-waves it all away and sneers at the purchase price.
There are arguments to be made for us all to be happy by consuming less. This post makes none of those arguments.
A million dollars to live NEXT TO A GAS STATION ON A BUSY INTERSECTION. Yeah, the listing on Redfin doesn't tell you that, does it. And some dumb SOB will buy it because it's close to Lake Union where his GREEN sailboat is moored.
3210 square feet. For a family of 4 (or less, more than likely). My family of 4 lives in half that and our house is great - plenty of room. The obsession in our market with bloated floor plans is pathetic. Every house I've been in that's this big - the occupants functionally use less than half the available space. This place has more driveway than yard, and no trees. Most of the backyard it would have had is covered by deck.
Frankly, it's depressing. I know it's popular, but it's pathetic.
@23
"We'd like to engage with you in creating solutions."
LOL
Chuck doesn't engage in creating solutions. He just snarks and tears down. To engage in creating solutions would be beneath him as it would require him contribute something of value.
@18 -B-: Agreed. You'll be happy to know that my choice to remain child-free is a big part of my contribution to leaving a small carbon footprint.
@19 If you truly believe that, robo, I've got the deeds to the Deception Pass and Tacoma Narrows Bridges I'd love to sell ya, all for a cool, green $2.1 million.
@24 randommonkey: Thank you for catching that.
@27
I realize you're probably just spoiling for a fight, auntie, but you've completely missed the point of my comment.
The owners chose to create this home on the footprint of a home they owned for 20 years, as opposed to breaking new ground in a rural setting.
It has long since become gospel truth at The Stranger that Seattleâs rents are so high, in part, because of the large amounts of land zoned as single-family residential. Only by re-zoning Seattle, sayeth this gospel, can rents come down again.
Therefore, Charles dutifully attacks the very idea of a single-family home being âgreen,â because there simply cannot be a justification for a single-family home. That would contradict the gospel of lower housing costs through re-zoning. It matters not that his assertions range from groundless to contrafactual, or that he lives in a less-efficient single-family home. Charles is preaching the gospel, and mere facts cannot compete.
@28: No, I get it, robo--you have no point, and apparently that's supposedly your charm. How much has the fossil fuel industry paid you? Here is why I so largely disagree with your comment @19:
Coal, in addition to being dirty, non-recyclable, and cancerous (ever hear of black lung disease?) is worthless. Stocks have plummeted. Better sources of energy (wind and solar, for two) are available, less expensive to implement, and infinitely healthier for our dying planet. And have you noticed that everything Mein Trumpfy touches turns to shit? You're welcome.
The house has three bedrooms and sits on 4,000 square feet of land. That's 1,333 square feet per occupant. There are 7.7 billion people in the world right now (and rising). If each one were to get 1,333 square feet, that works out to 10.3 trillion square feet of space or 953 billion square kilometers. The current area occupied by urban areas worldwide is 1.5 million square kilometers.
In other words, if this house weren't a bauble for the select few but the standard for humanity, it would increase our global footprint by 6358%. That's not including the roads and other infrastructure needed to get to and from the house. And I'm guessing there's not enough board timber at the bottom of the Great Salt Lake to go around, so some forests are getting cut down to build all those houses.
That doesn't sound very "green" to me.Viewed on its own, sure - it is better than your average 3,000-square foot house; but Charles's point stands: no single family residence is truly green, no matter how efficient it is on a standalone basis. Whoever buys this house is buying the illusion of sustainability, not actual sustainability. Actual sustainability might be multi-family buildings with this technology, although in all likelihood there is no sustainability with 7.7 billion in global population. We need to stop reproducing like rabbits.
It looks like a very nice house. If you had $2.1 million, it's as good a place as any to enjoy the final decade of our planet's habitability. Call Rebecca for a showing!
@32: Thank you for demonstrating that knowing how to use a calculator and knowing what the numbers mean are two entirely different things. (Youâre very good at one of those.)
âSustainableâ will mean different things in different situations. For a single-family house, this property is very sustainable. No one (except Charles and his sycophants) suggested any intent to house billions of persons in single-family homes. (There are plenty of high-rise residents, myself included, who wouldnât want to live in a single-family home under any circumstances.)
Rather than note this house is really very sustainable, and inquiring how to retrofit other local houses in this manner (and perhaps achieve cost reduction via economy of scale), all Charles (and his followers) can do is sneer, snark, and attempt insult. As noted @26, we have plenty of evidence showing how Charles has little interest in creating anything of value, be it sustainable houses or anything else.
Charles represents exactly what is wrong with America today, making assumptions and judgements based upon ignorance and false information provided by something he read on the internet. He ought to do some fact checking before he spouts off.
This homeowner is far from elitist. By choosing to reduce their impact on the environment they should be congratulated. Our society does not make it easy to be "green". It is a choice. We should all compost, recycle, reuse, refuse to buy plastic, walk or bike for transportation, etc. What example does Charles Mudede chose to set?