America’s “Dream Home” Maker

Build a Green Dream Home

by Jeanette Joy Fisher

Many home builders today are responding to consumer demand for an environmentally friendly home. If your dream home is "green," here are some key green building concepts to consider.

Site Location

First, a new site needs to be in an environmentally friendly location. This involves such things are orienting the house correctly to best use natural sunlight for heat and light, and situating the house on the lot so trees can shade the home during the hottest summer months. Just getting the site location right will vastly improve the efficiency of the home's furnace and air conditioning units.

Exiting Natural Features

Another green building technique is to try to have as little impact on the location as possible, which means preserving as much of the natural vegetation and trees as is practical and cost-effective. Don't underestimate the value of a stand of trees when it comes to breaking the winter wind during the coldest months of the year.

Energy Efficient

A third important factor is making the house as tight as possible to eliminate costly leaks of heat or cold air. This, combined with using low-output lighting such as LED or florescent can save literally thousands of dollars per year, which means those improvements will pay for themselves in a relatively short period of time. Another component in that scenario is to use Energy Star compliant appliances throughout the house.

Nearly any type of appliance you can imagine has been improved from an efficiency standpoint over the past few decades. In many cases, the added cost is hardly worth considering, since they generally aren't that much more expensive. In fact, it's actually getting harder to find appliances that AREN'T Energy Star compliant these days, which is certainly a boon, both to consumers and the environment.

Another factor in green construction addresses household water usage, since it’s one of the biggest money drains in the average home. Again, the good news is that most of the major companies in the plumbing field have embraced energy efficiency, making your choices nearly unlimited, from hot water heaters to low-flow shower heads in the bathroom.

One unfortunate side effect of building green is that the indoor air quality can sometime be five times more polluted than a normal house, due to the leakage of air, both in an out. However, that problem can be easily overcome by adding a fresh-air ventilation system that exhausts stale air outside and brings in fresh air from the outside.

Building green doesn't have to be prohibitively expensive or technologically futuristic. There are many, many ways to incorporate green building techniques into your home or office without spending a huge amount of money. There also may be state or federal money available to help offset the cost of going green, and don't forget that the increased efficiency will also make your life more comfortable AND save enough money to pay for itself over time. It's hard to think of something that could be better than that!

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