Shirari Industries :: Blog :: The Ithaca Green Buildings Open House

Ari and I spent the first weekend of October climbing on people's roofs, investigating their toilets, and befriending their goats. No, we weren't being inappropriately nosy - it was all part of the 2008 Ithaca Green Buildings Open House!

In partnership with the American Solar Energy Society's National Solar Tour, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, Ithaca Green Building Alliance and the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association organized the two-day event in which twenty-seven sites were open to visitors.

As aspiring owner-builders with a vision for a naturally-built, sustainable ecovillage, the tour offered an amazing opportunity to see what building and energy techniques work locally, and to meet a bunch of really cool people. In addition to a lot of photovoltaic systems, we checked out some amazing living/green roofs, unconventional stoves, outhouses, vegetable gardens, and really, really long driveways.

Folks were using a variety of building-techniques including timber-frame, strawbale, earth-berming and round construction. We also learned, not surprisingly, that a lot of green home-owners love animals. We made friends with many cats and dogs and even a couple of goats!

We managed to visit six homes, but my favorite was the first - Sarah Highland's straw-clay timber-framed house-in-progress. Sarah designed and is building the house herself, with help from friends. It's surrounded by beautiful land featuring a pond, an adorable sauna, and a composting toilet outhouse, which Sarah and Liz lovingly refer to as their "room with a view" and which is also temporarily housing their solar panel equipment.

While some of the other homes on the tour were just as beautiful, Sarah had designed and built the house mostly by herself, which is pretty damn impressive. The masonry stove itself, is something to behold.

All in all, it was a great tour. My take-aways are:

It's all about the land.
If you're not too far from the road, being on-grid has some benefits, even if you're generating most of your own power.
Wood is a beautiful building material.
Solar systems are easier to maintain if they're not on your roof. Unless of course, if you have a solar hot water system on top of your earth-bermed green roof like the Bensons.
Water catchment is easy - all you need is a barrel.
Being a bit of a gadget geek is good.
It makes sense to design a home where you can age in place.
Salvaged and vintage stuff is awesome.
Make friends with your local saw mill.