Site Overview

The purpose of this site is to make a large body of information about environmental building available for free to encourage its adoption.

The site is divided into three main sections:

The How-to section gives all the background knowledge on how to design and build a Green Home. 

The FAQ section has short answer for common green building questions.

The Case Studies section contains design notes, construction notes, and a virtual tour. 

For those new to green building:

The What section gives the basic ideas of green building (rollover requires javascript).

The Why section gives some arguments for green building.

About the Sensible House

The Sensible House Project is about designing and building environmentally friendly homes that move our society toward more sustainable living, without sacrificing how attractive and expensive they are.  Its about thinking idealistically, but being pragmatic.  Its about understanding human needs and desires, and finding good compromises. Since environmental building is a rapidly changing field, the concept of what a sensible house will change as well.  The idea of the Sensible House is be environmental in a way that just about everyone would want, if only they knew it was available and had a chance to experience it.

There are many barriers to green building, from lack of information, hard to find products to reluctant building department officials; but the biggest may be lack of a huge demand from consumers. Such has been the story of much environmental activism: everyone says they want it, but a much smaller percentage actually modify their purchasing habits. Part of the problem may be in labeling products as environmental and the associated belief system that many people have with those products: that they are inferior, hard to use, expensive or just plain weird.  

Many people have contributed to this collection of information, and much of it was also pulled from various sources both in print and on the web, but it was entered and is maintained by one person.  Most of the information was collected over a three year period in which we researched, designed, and then build a house according to the principles in here.

We encourage others to build sensible houses, as we believe the best way to get people to want one is to experience it.  Although many fine "Green" demonstration houses have already been built, there need to be many, many more of them, until there are enough so that virtually everyone knows someone who lives in one.