Carl Seville

Carl Seville

Carl Seville is a green builder, educator, and consultant on sustainability to the residential construction industry. He founded and served as Vice President of SawHorse, Inc; an Atlanta design/build firm for 25 years. While at SawHorse, he served as the chairman of the committee that developed the Earthcraft House Renovation program and supervised the pilot homes for that program.

He is the recipient of numerous industry awards including the 2008 Excellence Award for Green Homes from Residential Design Build Magazine, the 2009 Energy Value Housing Award, the 2005 and 2007 Green Remodeling Advocate of the Year, the 2004 and 2006 National Green Building Awards for Residential Remodeling, six Excellence in Design Awards from Environmental Design and Construction magazine, the Southface Energy Institute Award of Excellence for Environmental Stewardship, and the 2006 EarthCraft House Leadership award.

Carl is an NAHB Certified Trainer, a HERS rater, an NAHB Green Building Program Verifier, a LEED for Homes Green Rater, and an EarthCraft House Technical Advisor, and holds the LEED AP Homes designation. He has served on the boards of directors of the Greater Atlanta Homebuilders Association and the Atlanta chapter of NARI, the Green Building Subcommittee and the Green Building Education Curriculum Committee of NAHB, NARI’s Green Remodeling Education Committee, the Georgia Governor’s Energy Policy Council, and the Editorial Advisory Boards of Professional Remodeling and Atlanta Home Improvement magazines. He is the USGBC Residential Green Building Advocate for Atlanta.

Carl has been involved in numerous green building training and certification projects. In addition to working on the creation of the EarthCraft House Renovation program, he was a co-author of the USGBC/ASID ReGreen residential green remodeling guidelines and the NAHB Certified Green Professional training program for which he taught the pilot class and continues to teach to builders. He is a lead writer on the team currently preparing the 2012 LEED for Homes Reference Guide. He recently prepared and delivered a new curriculum for EarthCraft Renovation. He was a member a task force of the Partnership for Advanced Technology in Housing (PATH) involved in developing protocols for home energy retrofits. He has contributed to and served as an instructor for the NARI Green Certified Professional curriculum, and has presented dozens of seminars on green building and remodeling to industry professionals.

He currently hosts the blog www.greenbuildingcurmudgeon.com and is the co-author of Green Building, Principles and Practices in Residential Construction, the first college textbook on residential green building and is a regular contributor to Remodeling Magazine.



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Metal roofing reflects heat, rather than absorbing it. Photo by Caryn Colgan for Networx.com.

A Beginner's Guide to Cool Roofs

Posted by Carl Seville | May 01, 2012

The concept of cool roofs is thrown around a lot these days. US Energy Secretary Steven Chu suggested that painting roofs white, along with making paving more reflective, would reduce...

Can a swimming pool be ecologically sound? You be the judge. Photo by Stephen J. Sullivan/sxc.hu.

Making Your Pool More Environmentally-Friendly

Posted by Carl Seville | Apr 16, 2012

Pools and other water features like fountains and ponds are pretty seriously inefficient when it comes to both electrical workings and water, so the most efficient thing to do is not...

According to green building consultant Carl Seville, replacing windows should be last on your list of energy-efficiency upgrades.

For Energy Efficiency, Replace Your Windows Last

Posted by Carl Seville | Apr 09, 2012

When most people think about energy efficiency, once they stop talking about solar panels, they usually get to windows. “My windows are so old,” or “They’re...

Just kidding.

Picking the Greenest Toilet

Posted by Carl Seville | Apr 05, 2012

For years, toilets worked just fine getting rid of our waste, but until relatively recently, they used a lot of water doing so. Federal law required that by 1994 all toilets use no...

The ENERGY STAR certified Active Smart Refrigerator by Fisher & Paykel (photo used with permission from Fisher & Paykel Imagebank)

Getting the Most from Your ENERGY STAR Appliances

Posted by Carl Seville | Mar 22, 2012

ENERGY STAR appliances bear one of the most recognized certifications in America. but you may be wondering what exactly is it and how can it help you. ENERGY STAR was developed in 1992...

What you see right here is an exterior shade screen. They help keep heat out of your house in the hot summer months.

Air Conditioning is Not the Only Answer

Posted by Carl Seville | Mar 21, 2012

Feeling comfortable in hot weather requires two things to happen together. The temperature and the relative humidity (RH) of the air must both be low enough to keep you from sweating....

These are cleaned, salvaged bricks. Bricks are a great material to salvage for future use.

The Best Building Materials to Salvage and Reuse

Posted by Carl Seville | Mar 19, 2012

When homes are renovated or demolished, all too often old materials are tossed in a Dumpster and hauled to the landfill. This is both wasteful and costly – there are many parts...

You would need to seal the knee walls in a house like this, which has a bonus room over the garage. (Photo: Kenn W. Kiser/morguefile.com)

Four Worthwhile Home Energy Retrofits

Posted by Carl Seville | Mar 19, 2012

Almost every homeowner at some point asks the question, “What are the best energy improvements I can make to my house?” The answer to that very important question is “it depends.”...

This parking structure in Santa Monica is LEED Certified. (Photo: Schlusselbein2007/Flickr)

What Do the Various LEED Certifications Mean?

Posted by Carl Seville | Mar 15, 2012

LEED certification is hot — lots of people want it, but do they even know what it means? Get the facts. LEED accreditation The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) developed...

Fiberglass batt insulation. Photo: mjtmail (tiggy)/Flickr

What's Wrong With Batt Insulation?

Posted by Carl Seville | Mar 13, 2012

Fiberglass batts are the commonest insulation materials used in home building, yet the vast majority of the time they are not installed properly, leading to very inefficient construction....