Can a Big House in the Country Be Green?

I'm glad this post is here on TH, just above another idiotic post about green eco-chic nonsensical consumer crap post (wedding gowns???) I hope this site can finally get over the hump of pandering to the still entrenched need for useless consumer goods that just happen to be a bit more sustainable than cheap Chinese garbage.

I'm not holding my breath on that, seeing as how the love for insane nonsense like that Tommy Lee/rapper guy show still oozes from every byte of this site.

Well said Lloyd. My wife and I used to be gangbusters for buying a plot of land and building a self-sufficient strawbale home. Now, 10 years later, and a whole lot wiser we believe that it would be more practical to live in the city we work in, in an existing home that we can modify to be more environmentally friendly. If we can all make some changes in our personal lives, in our existing homes, it would be a huge step forward.

Excellent post.

I stopped reading Inhabitat a long time ago, for this exact reason - I got tired of reading about 5,000 sq ft "green" houses.

As with cars, everyone dumping their old car for a prius is not green. Retrofitting is definitely the way forward that will use the least resources. Of course, retrofitting (of both cars and houses) is expensive, and it isn't very easy to market because it doesn't have that shiny new spangliness to it. Anyone that can figure an easy way to use existing infrastructure (water pipes, electric wires, etc.) to fit green tech into old houses will have a winner. They did it with 'phone lines (think DSL internet) a decade ago!

A house should be 1500 to 2000 square feet max,but good luck convincing your clients this,if you are a contractor and want to work.Last year we had a perspective client come to us to build his home on 5 acres that someone else had designed and he wanted us to make it energy efficient.[because our company specialized in passive solar design and construction.]The house was 4500 square feet for 2 people and the design had 58 corners and way too many roof lines.We told the clients the best option was to trash the plans which they had paid over $10,000 for and start over.Needless to say we did not get the job![nor did we want it]Hopefully the current energy and housing crisis will create some common sense in what the clients want.

Agreed. I had the same response to this monster that may even be LEED-H Platinum certified. But at 4,600 sq. ft. (for two people!), it's anything but green in spirit. It's like making a hybrid Hummer and then calling it green.

I think the answer to the question in your title is a straight up no. Regardless of the environmental impact (or lack thereof) of the house itself, living so far away from cities without necessity is a really bad thing if you are trying to fight climate change. However good the house itself is, you are still contributing to greenhouse gases by living out there, unless you are a farmer or almost completely self-sufficient and choosing not to drive.

I get equally frustrated at great green designs that are ridiculously overpriced. If it's not affordable, then it's not attainable. This further pushes the argument that the middle and lower class have that green solutions are only for the rich (I don't believe that's 100% true, but you can see where the argument comes from).
As to Magnet: I too have looked at doing something with my family on a small piece of land. The closest "affordable" solution so far is a kit house design that I found. Otherwise, it's a bit too expensive.

I hear ya! I'm also getting weary of these green-for-rich-people projects. Scads of regular folk live in tract homes. We need homebuilders to show how green tract homes can be built at attractive and competitive price points. (Frankly in this depressed housing market, offering such homes would be a huge differentiator!) We also need to change HOA's and individuals minds regarding conformity. There needs to be change so that people can build innovative and attractive homes that don't fit the conventional colonial/traditional mode. Right now you typically need to be wealthy enough to live in a "bring-your-own-architect" neighborhood or live miles out in the country where nobody cares what you build (in which case you're burning lots of gas to get to work, defeating the green purpose).

I definitely agree with the need for realistic design and use now, especially the smaller and cheaper bit. But paying $600 thousand for a house, which is what a Cottage Company home goes for, I wouldn't want to be staring in my neighbor's back window every night. I'd rather find a place where I can buy an acre and still put the small footprint cottage on for that price. Privacy is a good thing- be far enough away from your neighbor to mind your own business, and close enough to still be a neighbor.

Based on your story and the comments, I thought this was a McMonster too, but the Inhabit website says it's 3 bedrooms 2500 sf. Hardly a monster.

I find it hard to square the promotion of so-called green houses with the criticism of offshore drilling by some environmentalists. In my mind, they're two sides of the same coin, with sprawl encouraging the very consumption of fossil fuels we're proportedly against. Green houses seem to get a pass because they're pretty and fit into most people's outdated conception of the American dream, while on the other hand, oil rigs are ugly. This may sound extreme, but I think we need to start viewing urban sprawl the same way we view a drilling platform or open pit mine, no matter how pretty or "green" the houses are. In the end, all three are ugly when compared to unspoilt land, all three take up tremendous amounts of space, and all three completely alter the local ecosystem. One of the big differences is that oil rigs and mines provide value to many more people in the way of jobs and natural resources than does a sprawling housing development of comparable size. I'm not saying oil consumption or mining is a good thing. All three need to have limits.

How does a family of 7 live in one of those 700 sqft green homes?

I know, by default I'm not green because my wife and I have 5 kids but nevertheless we are trying to do what we can.
We bought 3 wooded acres in Northern Virginia because it was cheaper than any of the available lots in the megadevelopments and not any further from work. I vanpool to DC.

Beyond the fact that I have a large family, I would suggest that some people have a reason for a larger home. My wife tele-works from home and we also homeschool our kids. Sure we could do all that around our oversized kitchen table but it is much more practical to have dedicated spaces for these endeavors.

So, even though some of you don't consider large homes and large vehicles green, many people have them (for many various reasons) and some of us do appreciate finding ways to green them up as much as possible.

If I had a lot of money and some land, I'd build a decent sized house, too. But you're right: most of us don't have the land or the money.

Erik, believe it or not, not everyone works in cities.

I think this article is kinda misleading - there is a difference between a "rural house" and "giant mansion"...they don't have to be one in the same. You can have a small, rural, off-grid house - it needn't be a 5,000 sq ft monster. We plan on buying a house about 10 miles from the center of our small town, which gives us land to garden on, room for animals to give us eggs and milk, and plenty of space to stretch out. All in 1300 sq feet. So what is this article really about - giant mansions claiming to be green, or can rural houses be green? They don't have to always go together!