Occasionally I hear from readers of the Healthy Home Corner and it is great to know that you are actually out there. Last month's column brought many thoughtful responses. Here are a few:



" I have been wondering why, in our unusual high desert climate, with sun almost every day, and cool nights, we are now dealing with HERS ratings that would better apply to a place like Kansas City, where I came from years ago. Your article was clear and to the point. I hope some of the city and county establishment were reading this morning."
— Michael Trusty


"If we are going to offer tax credits to encourage sustainable building, we need a different system. As Paula Baker-Laporte points out in her article "PERS vs HERS," the current system rewards arbitrary conservation techniques. I live in a small adobe house with no air conditioning. It keeps cool in summer because of the mass of the adobe walls. Yet, with the current HERS system, this counts for nothing.

If we paid the true cost of utilities, including the cost to repair the environmental damage done by utility companies, the cost of heating/cooling our homes would force us all to conserve and we would not need government subsidies based on "one size fits all" energy rating systems that don't seem to apply to our specific climate. In Europe the cost of electricity and natural gas is much higher than in the U.S. and you can see the conservation results. Many people in Europe do not use a clothes dryer, but instead hang their clothes to dry. Houses are built to cool naturally with window shutters keeping out the mid-day heat instead of keeping an air conditioner on all day long. In the winter house, temperatures are lower and people put on sweaters.

We see this effect in Santa Fe where we pay for our water usage. Most people do not have lawns that require constant water. Our yard contains native grasses and wildflowers that look nice but never need to be watered.

If we want to encourage people to live more sustainably by using government credits, then let's do as Paula suggests and do a more realistic measurement of energy savings.
— Pauline Kenny
(www.sloweurope.com)


"Your article in the September Real Estate Guide in The New Mexican really resonated with me. Our passive-solar home designed by Mark Chalom won the 2008 Build Green New Mexico "Green Home of the Year" award. The basic design of our home is the reason we won the award since we did not even know about Build Green New Mexico until we were almost 60 percent complete. We have open windows and doors from June into October and consider that option to be one of the advantages of living in Santa Fe. Sitting in our living room and listening to our outdoor fountain through our open portal doors is one of the simple pleasures we enjoy all summer. If you follow the HERS or LEED certification path to their highest levels, you will likely end up with a highly insulated home with forced mechanical ventilation which may be appropriate for areas like the east or midwest, but which ignores the climate advantages of living in Santa Fe. Our actual energy usage is well below our already low HERS of 59 because we are energy-conscious occupants, our basic design is excellent, and our home has many built-in energy-saving devices such as motion detectors to control lights. There is little we can do to further save energy except leave home!
— Rich Bechtold


Do you have any questions relating to your health in your home? Do you have an interesting story to share about your health in your home? Contact me at paula@econest.com and I will share questions, answers and case studies in this column.

Paula Baker-Laporte FAIA, an architect and certified Building Biology practitioner, is the principal of Baker-Laporte & Associates and of EcoNest Design. She is primary author of Prescriptions for a Healthy House and co-author with husband Robert Laporte of Econest: Creating Sustainable Sanctuaries of Clay, Straw and Timber.