Louder Than Green
In an episode of Aimee Haasteaby’s podcast Louder Than Green, Toby Witte broke down what it actually takes to design and build modern, energy-efficient homes, without the HGTV fantasy timeline and without the fluffy buzzwords.
We talk about “sustainable building” like it is an upgrade. Toby Witte made a case for why it should be the baseline.
Listen & Watch
What They got into
Why “communication, communication, communication” is the real risk-management system
The diagnostic step Toby Witte runs before he even proposes a project
How he prevents budget and timeline blowups by bringing builders in early
Why better building is not political, it is practical
The simplest mental model Aimee Haasteaby has heard for energy efficiency: build your home like a Yeti cooler
If you care about performance, comfort, long-term operating costs, and building systems that do not fall apart under real life, you will like this one.
Some Excerpts
Toby Witte: The focus of our work is certainly the design of modern energy efficient homes, but we really offer a comprehensive service package for our clients.
We really become their guide, take them by the hand and take them through the entire process. For our clients, it's a one time affair, a big deal. Their life savings are at stake.
A lot of hopes, dreams, aspirations are wrapped into this. We don't take that lightly. They have no idea how it all works.
We try to be there for them as a trusted guide. It starts with a lot of information sharing up front to tell really what you need to know and how you need to look at this from the outset.
We're really trying to make this most exciting adventure of their lifetime.
And we are successful. Our clients tell us how, literally, how happy they are through the whole process, how this house creation process is such a beautiful experience for them. And that's where the success lies for us.
Aimee Haasteaby: I love that you call it a house creation process. That's really great. It really does explain: It's much more than just building a house. You're really creating a home and an experience.
Toby Witte: So the title of the book, Supersizing Bliss, is really the center of what we try to offer. We want to allow our clients to be happy and create physical environments for them that have the capability to enrich their lives and really stages for happiness to ensue. And so everything we do is towards that goal.
How can we improve the lives of our clients? How can we allow them to leave all the stress from work and whatnot on the front step? How can they be in a safe environment, a cocoon, a place where their personalities are met and their memories and their stories are part of their physical surroundings?
Toby Witte: If I could wave my wand, I would have the mindsets change nationwide to the idea of designing a house simply and building it simply better. When you design and build a house green, you're going to get a better home - end of story. And there are so many things that can be done with minimally extra costs, sometimes without extra costs.
There's some ways to implement at this time, at this moment, that are very effective and very easy and very standard, and it should be a no-brainer to do that. I think we are certainly running out of time. We're destroying our own habitat.
We're adding to the climate cancer every day.
Every time I sit in my car. I unfortunately don't drive an electric car. If I were to drive an electric car, I still would be pained driving it, thinking that how much of this got juiced by renewable energy and how much wasn't.
Toby WItte: How much are we using up our resources and destroying our habitat? Households in the US account for about 22 percent of all energy consumption. Households! 22 percent of all energy consumption - it is mind-boggling.
Construction is responsible for 40 percent of all the greenhouse gases we put out there. Just construction, 40 percent. Concrete alone is responsible for 8 percent of CO2 in our atmosphere that we are adding.
When I try to picture the rock we live on, this Earth, and the atmosphere, the layer around it, that protects us and separates us from the universe beyond, the difference between us having living organisms on this Earth and - picture Mars or whatever - where you are in outer space essentially.
It's just that atmosphere that protects us from that, and we're actively chiseling away at it. We are now at a moment where our chiseling gets multiplied.
Aimee Haasteaby: Turned into a jackhammer.
Toby WItte: Yes, exactly. Take your head out of the sand, stop moping around, and just do it. There's no problem.
There's so much more that we could ask for and understand and just accept without discussing it, without arguing about it. It's just a fact. And there's no reason not to do it right.
It's ridiculous. For instance, to make our house energy efficient, the first step is to button it up. A builder we work with thought about it like a Yeti cooler, essentially.
Your living space: put it inside a Yeti cooler, so it's completely surrounded, uninterrupted by insulation. And in addition to that, it's buttoned up in terms of airflow.
We had right now here in North Carolina some really cold days.
And in most houses, you could put your hand in front of a receptacle on an outside wall, and you could feel that there's actually cold air coming in through your receptacle. So what we're actually doing is we're heating and cooling our houses and keeping our windows wide open. We're heating and cooling on the front yard.
The best insulation doesn't change it when we don't have a continuous air barrier around to space. That alone - when you actually create that continuous insulation, continuous air barrier - that alone isn't that complicated.
It can be easily achieved. It doesn't have to cost that much more money to put attention towards that.
And if these green measures are a hoax to you, it doesn't matter, because you still will provide a better living environment for you.
The airtightness of your control.
Aimee Haasteaby: Well, that affects your electric bill, right? I mean, it directly affects your electric bill if you could button it up.”
Toby WItte: Yes, exactly.