Homeowners learn ‘how to’ in continuing studies course

Green houses
Homeowners learn ‘how to’ in continuing studies course

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News Staff

As more homeowners seek to create healthier and energy-efficient homes for their families, Rice is stepping up its efforts to show them how. The university is offering a new continuing studies course about building environmentally friendly houses.

The course, offered by the Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, will explore how to “green” houses new and old, taking on such topics as affordable sustainability, environmental sensibility, new technologies and construction materials and methods.

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“Green Houses,” a new glass being offered by the Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, will discuss such topics as affordable sustainability, environmental sensibility, new technologies and construction materials and methods.

Still open for registration, the “Green Houses” class meets 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays, March 5 through April 16.

“Greening a home is important for many practical reasons,” said Michael Strong, one of the instructors. “A green home is more durable and it will take less time and money to care for. It might seem like you’re undertaking an expense to ‘go green,’ but really, you can’t afford not to. You’ll spend more time and money trying to maintain a house that doesn’t use these sustainable and green technologies.”

The instructors, Strong and Brent Nyquist ’83, will offer their students a framework for completing a home-building project, providing resources and methods for researching, specifying and certifying a project.

“We want our students to walk out at the end of the program with steps they can take immediately,” Strong said. 

For their students, Strong and Nyguist have developed a top 10 list of what can be done to green a home in Houston, taking into consideration the heat and humidity.

“We will target the things that will give our students the biggest return on their investments,” Strong said. “It’s hard to know where to start when you have a big list of things to do, but we’ll help them make sense of it by prioritizing what to do first.”

Strong is vice president of GreenHaus Builders, which specializes in the construction of healthier, high-performance green homes. He just completed construction of the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) pilot home in Houston.

Strong serves on the American National Standards Institute task force for green remodeling standards and co-hosts the “Home Improvement Hotline” radio show in Houston.

“In deciding to teach this class, the opportunity to work with Rice was pre-eminent,” Strong said. “I’m excited to work in this capacity with the university and the community and help people build better homes.”

Nyquist, a principal in the firm Atticus Architecture, is a registered architect with more than 20 years of experience in residential design and construction. He holds a bachelor of arts and a bachelor of architecture degree from Rice.

The $155 registration fee will increase to $165 after Feb. 20.

More information on this and other courses offered by the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies can be found at www.gscs.rice.edu or by phone at 713-348-4803.

Classes are open to all adults. Rice faculty and staff, as well as their spouses, receive a 50 percent discount on all nonlimited courses.