On one of our current houses we have gone beyond the traditional vented crawl space. In hot humid climates, typical crawl space venting brings warm humid outisde air into the cooler spaces under the house. This causes condensation and thus a more moist environment.. For this home, we designed a conditioned, sealed, crawl space with controlled air circulation. Listen to local green builder Matt Risinger talk about this ingenious approach...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOsQ9JBt1EI
The Purple Heron House was on Austin AIA's 2012 Homes Tour. Here's a link to the Austin AIA webpage with a wrap-up of this and past year's tours.
We've assembled responses to the most frequently asked questions about Residential Green Buidling. Download your answers here.