The Americans coined this phrase to mean using your own products rather than just foisting them on other people. I'm interested to see how much this applies to people on this forum. How many people here:

1. Live in a building that was designed from the outset to be 'green'. Let's blur the green definition to mean that the house has some design element or feature that is unusual or uncommon in standard domestic builds for the area in order to reduce energy consumption or environmental impact. for example, significantly exceeding building regs for insulation, or using solar heating for hot water.

2. Are in the process of building 'green' homes for themselves or clients.

3. Are attempting to specify a 'green' design with the realistic intention of building at some time in the future.

4. Supply 'green' technology or consultation to clients who are actively using them to produce homes?

5. Have retro-fitted green technology to their current home in order to make it more energy efficient?

1. No
2. No
3. In my dreams
4. No
5. In progress

S.

1. Naw

2. Yep

3. Yep, hopefully next year on own land.

4. Whenever possible

5. Some

1. Not yet (renting)
2. Yes, in the planning stages, have acquired rural land in Spain
3. Yes, our architects are young and aware of green design although they've not really had any experience building a green home. It's a learning experience for both of us. The meetings usually involve me bringing them some new ideas (often from this forum!) of "this is how it's done in the northern Europe, how can it be done here?", and them going away and finding a solution which is understood by the local industry.
4. N/A
5. N/A

1. No

2. If a highly-spec'd/insulated Segal-style T/F 'garden room' will count, Yes.

3. No

4. Yes. It's what I do for a living, if only it would provide enough of one!!

5. No

1. No
2. If renovation work counts - Yes
3. No
4. Consultation
5. Yes

I had hoped people would elucidate a little, just to give some of their background, but the replies so far are interesting.

For our own situation, here are our answers

1. No - we moved from a 1930's town house (single brick wall and draughty, but double glazed and efficiently heated), to a caravan on site whilst we complete our planning application for our new home

2. Yes - our plans centre around solar gain, natural and reclaimed materials where possible and we hope to include modern heating technologies to provide a healthy environment.

3. No, we're further along than that (see 2.)

4. No, we're consumers rather than suppliers

5. Yes, if you count heating a caravan with bio-diesel!

I have to say I'm disappointed at the response so far.

Does this mean the majority of members of the forum have no direct link with green building, or are people just not interested in sharing their experience?

Tuna - I am relatively new to this forum so I am probably not qualified as it were to comment on the type of folk who use it. I may be wrong but my feeling is that there are a small number of experts who regularly post here who could respond to your questionnaire, but the majority would have to answer "not applicable" to numbers 1 to 4 and yes to number 5 only. May be that is why there is not a bigger response?

Certainly that is my situation. I would love to be able to live in or design/build a purpose made green building but it just ain't gonna happen due to my personal circumstances! Meanwhile I am simply insulating/draughtproofing like crazy with a view to replacing our inefficient oil fired boiler in due course with solar panels, an air source heat pump, thermal store and possibly a back up heat source (type yet to be decided).

Jeff B.

1. No, no and yes. (We have 3 buildings and the latest was designed to be green in the use phase.)
2. No.
3. No.
4. Yes, well perhaps 'producing homes' is a bit of a stretch. As an electrician I try to steer customers to greener ways.
5. Limited to CFLs in the main house but yes for our holiday accommodation. Plus a wind turbine.

1. No. I just moved into in a 1960's Eco disaster.

2. No. But I plan to do a Green extension in 18 months time.

3. No, see 2.

4. No, but as I'm still learning but plan to start an energy advice business in the near future. I'm currently
trying to establish a nationally recognised qualification / training programme for the basics of energy efficiency.

5. Yep. Added a programmable room stat & I've only been in 5 weeks ;-) Waiting on survey for cavity insualtion quote. Added 95% Low energy lighting. The rest will have to wait until we start on the structural work : Air tightness, external insualtion, increased loft insulation with boarding over, replace heating system with (small) high efficiency gas combi, underfloor heating and either a thermal store or Mains pressure tank (to free up loft space). Still trying to decide whether to fit solar h/w or wait a bit longer for prices to come down. Alternatveily - I have a Chinese contact who can supply a complete system for £300@factory gate price!? Maybe worth a punt. PV is out until they start shippping nanosolar cells in the UK @ 1/10 current price? Would go for a heat pump, but my plan is to not need much heating , so the cost of installion seems too high.

I think a lot of people on the forum are not building from scratch but like me, looking for how to retrofit stuff to existing houses. I purposley chose an 1960's house to work with as I see the existing housing stock as the biggest problem in tackling climate change - so bringing one up to higher than modern standards as an example will hopefully inspire others to follow. Once I've finished this one, I'll have a go at something really old to see what can be done there.