Good Habits & Habitat for Humanity

There are certain times of year that people are inspired to set new goals- New Year's, the first day of spring, lunar new year, and another time is when kids are going back to school. I have been seriously slacking on updating this blog and I plan to fix that right now. My goal is to write at least blog entry a week. Now that I've put that out there, I had better do it!

About a week ago I got a chance to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity in the downtown area. I've volunteered with other organizations before, but this was the first time I was going to get really physical. It was a lot of fun to really see not only the building of a house, but to actually help out. I mostly worked on putting up siding- learned how to correctly caulk, use a nail gun, and this automatic saw thing which I was at first terrified of, but then got the hang of it.

This was an especially momentous occasion because this is the first Platinum LEED certified home built in Indianapolis. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It is kind of a complicated grading system, but basically for a residential property there are four levels- certified, silver, gold, and platinum -being the highest. So after the building is complete, this third party comes to evaluate the 'performance' of the house in energy savings, water efficiency, indoor air quality, building materials, harmful emissions, etc.

Here is some more info from the U.S. Green Building Council on LEED's rating system, which I'm also a member of. If you would like to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity too, here's the link to their website. It's very rewarding, especially when you get to meet the people and hear some of the stories of the people who will be calling the house you helped built their home.