Normal Green: Low-Impact Houses Not Just for Posers

I have a nemesis and it's the house being built down the street. The people who are building it tore down what looked to be a pretty decent house in order to build their new, platinum LEED-certified, green home.

Except the new house is one of those 5,000 square foot McMansions that takes up the entire lot but an 18-inch strip of grass surrounding it. Except that they spent an entire month pumping out ground water from the site (giant hoses pointing directly into the storm drain and a generator running 24/7) so they could build their media room/basement. Except that the amount of construction workers on the house numbers in the dozens and their huge trucks take up every available parking space on the surrounding streets.

This construction site — a small city, really — also attracts teams of roach coaches who show up three or four times a day, blaring their horns, and blocking the streets to cook up greasy egg sandwiches and burgers and whatever else the construction workers request while on their breaks.

This house drives me bonkers. Every time I pass it I want to scream, "It's not green to build a GIANT house on a small lot! It's not green to upset the water table!"

I have been interested in low-impact living ever since I saw my first Glide house. This was years ago, before the current green living boom, and Michelle Kaufmann's clean, simple, low-impact designs still appeal to me. For me, low-impact housing extends beyond LEED certifications, and includes how will my living impact the earth, my neighbors, my community. If my husband and I ever had the chance to build our own home, it would be small and as off-the-grid as possible. Who wants to clean eight toilets even if they are low-flow?

Interested in green building? Here are some resources that are too late for my new neighbors, but should come in handy for anyone interested in building a real low-impact house.

• A low-impact woodland home. It cost less than $10,000 to build. (One my favorite Stumble Upon finds, ever.)
• Green Pods: Small, lovely low-impact homes.
• More green prefab homes.
• Homes built with structured insulated panels (SIPs).
• Off-the-grid homes. (No, these aren't tents and yurts.)

In the meantime, I think I need to find a new route home. One that won't take me by my nemesis.

Photo credit: michelle kauffman designs