{"id":1252,"date":"2010-04-21T23:02:51","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T23:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/?p=1252"},"modified":"2026-03-23T14:08:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:08:35","slug":"catherine-mohr-building-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/2010\/04\/catherine-mohr-building-green\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Mohr: Building Green"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xP4w2DMscGw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Ever feel like you&#8217;re being watched by the Green Police? Have a loved-one who thinks that tossing a newspaper in the trash is the equivalent of clubbing a baby seal? Tired of transparent marketing campaigns for products with dubious environmental benefits? You&#8217;re certainly not alone.<\/p>\n<p>In this video from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/catherine_mohr_the_tradeoffs_of_building_green\">TED Talks<\/a>, Catherine Mohr rightly calls out the insanity of nitpicking over every paper towel or coat of paint, and identifies the real elephant in the room: <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Embodied_energy\">embodied energy<\/a>. Embodied energy is the total amount of energy necessary for an entire product lifecycle, including everything from transportation to installation to decomposition. When used as a metric to evaluate sustainable construction construction practices, it can reveal the real opportunities for substantial savings over conventional methods. Not surprisingly, off-the-shelf and post-construction products yield little savings. Instead, the real meat and potatoes savings come from floors, doors, windows and insulation.<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Total-Building-Embodied-Energy1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1312\" title=\"Total Building Embodied Energy\" src=\"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Total-Building-Embodied-Energy1-e1271897552385.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"511\" height=\"328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Total-Building-Embodied-Energy1-e1271897552385.jpg 511w, https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Total-Building-Embodied-Energy1-e1271897552385-300x192.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 511px) 100vw, 511px\" \/><\/a>\n<p>On her personal house, Ms. Mohr uses some interesting techniques, including straw bale walls which she claims have zero embodied energy. She also resorts to FSC-certified wood not only for the framing of the house, but also for the windows. This represents a significant savings over aluminum framed windows.<\/p>\n<p>In principle, I&#8217;m a fan of what Ms. Mohr has done with her house. That she opted to use straw bale techniques endears her to my heart. However, I find the demolition of the existing house a little unsettling.\u00a0 The tear-down was likely required to pour the concrete slab flooring for passive solar heating, however one wonders the original building could have been retained. Most of us are not self-proclaimed &#8220;organic food eating, carbon footprint minimizing, robotic surgery geek[s]&#8221; and will not spend an exorbitant amount of time, effort, and money calculating the embodied energy trade-offs associated with the construction of our dream home. If it comes time to rip down the old house, I&#8217;m going in with a sledgehammer and a crowbar (read: boys with toys), not a material salvage company. You can kiss that embodied energy savings goodbye.<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Pay-Off-Period.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1309\" title=\"Pay-Off Period\" src=\"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Pay-Off-Period.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"513\" height=\"317\" srcset=\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Pay-Off-Period.jpg 513w, https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Pay-Off-Period-300x185.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 513px) 100vw, 513px\" \/><\/a>\n<p>With a break-even point after initial upgrades nearly 20 years out, and additional improvements a near certainty along the way, is new construction necessarily the most efficient way for the average homeowner to go green? Also, wouldn&#8217;t Ms. Mohr be better off ditching the house altogether for a downtown condo where she could cut her annual embodied in half by living car-free (ignoring for a second that she seems to fly for a living)?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps I&#8217;m being too critical. It&#8217;s easy to deride those that go out on a limb for a cause. What do you think? Is greening a single-family house a futile venture or a way for every household to make a difference? Should they build off of what&#8217;s there, or start anew?<\/p>\n<p><!--See progress on her house at: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.301monroe.com\/\">301 Monroe <\/a>--><\/p>\n<p>Via Worldchanging<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">\n<p>Ever feel like you&#8217;re being watched by the Green Police? Have a loved-one who thinks that tossing a newspaper in the trash is the equivalent of clubbing a baby seal? Tired of transparent marketing campaigns for products with dubious environmental benefits? You&#8217;re certainly not alone.<\/p>\n<p>In this video from TED Talks, Catherine Mohr rightly calls out the insanity of nitpicking over every paper towel or coat of paint, and identifies the real elephant in the room: embodied energy. Embodied energy is the total amount of energy necessary for an entire product lifecycle, including everything from transportation to installation to decomposition. When used as a metric to evaluate sustainable construction construction practices, it can reveal the real opportunities for &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/2010\/04\/catherine-mohr-building-green\/\" class=\"read-more\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[46,59,36],"class_list":["post-1252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","tag-environment","tag-houses","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1252"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11165,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions\/11165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}