Thinking of Building a Green Built Home?

The whole idea of this Building Green movement is to reduce our "Carbon Footprint" on the Earth. To reduce our dependency, on not just foreign oil, but any of Earth's fossil fuels. The use of fossil fuels are thought to be the cause of Global Warming. If you want your grandchildren and their grandchildren to have a livable environment in the years ahead, we need to make a change immediately on how things are done.

When you think of a "Green Built Home", what do you think of? Do you think of some futuristic space age domicile with solar panels all over the roof? How about a geodesic dome full of belated tree hugging hippies? If you do then you're not a lot different from what many people might think. Actually, a Green Built Home can't be distinguished from the other homes in your neighborhood. Green Building is just doing things a little different from what we have been doing, only giving serious thought to the effect on our environment, before, during and after your home is built. A Green Built Home doesn't cost much more to build than a conventional home but the return on investment is much higher in energy savings thus reducing the ongoing cost of living in your Green Built Home. So you're really saving money while saving the Earth!

The EPA estimates that buildings in the United States account for 39 percent of total energy use, 12 percent of the total water consumption, 68 percent of total electricity consumption, and 38 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. Green Building incorporates environmental considerations and resource efficiency into every step of building a new home to minimize the environmental impact on our Earth.

Green Building Standards
We have a choice of whose Green Building Standards to build from. Nationally, there are two major standards, depending on who you talk with. There is the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standard. LEED was originally written for commercial properties and residential has been added recently. Then there is the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Green Building Program and is totally focused on Home Building. To add to the confusion, various local governments and Building Associations may have adopted a version of their own. Here in North Texas we have the Green Built North Texas program (soon to be renamed Green Built Texas) which is patterned after the NAHB program. Check with your local building department or Home Builder's Association to see if they have a program to build by. If you choose to build a Green Built Home you would want to have it verified and registered. Both of these national standards are built around several common principles and these principles are:

1. Building Site
Green Building is giving thought to the Building Site and not just rubber-stamping a house plan on a lot. If the site is a "Brownfield" site, we need to check for contaminates or hazardous waste that was left behind from the previous use of the land and clean-up and dispose of the problem properly.

You need to consider the position of the sun on a hot summer afternoon and position and design your home so to minimize the sun's effect on keeping your home cool. It is preventing debris from being washed away and down the storm sewers or having construction trash blowing in the wind. Any debris that is recyclable needs to be flattened and place in bins for recycling. Of course, that sounds like something we should have been doing anyway. We need to give thought to the building site as to how rain water run off is going to effect the immediate surrounding neighborhood.

2. Water Management
Green Building is serious consideration to Water Management. It is the conservation of water usage inside the home and irrigation to the plants outside the home. Some go to the extreme of reusing the grey water from a home or rain water collection for irrigation. Specifying Low-Flow Shower Heads is the first step in water management. A 5 minute Old Shower Head shower can use over 30 gallons of water which half of that was heated by your water heater. Install a low-flow shower head and your saving money already and saving the environment. The same is true in the Kitchen and the Dishwasher.

3. Resource Efficiency
Green Building is consideration to the selection of Building Materials that during manufacturing didn't leave a large Ecological Footprint. You should select building materials that don't outgas toxic vapors. In section 4 I will touch on Interior Air Quality. Your selected building materials should also be very durable and be able to last a very long time.

Resource Efficiency is also the intelligent use of Engineered Lumber and Materials. According to the NAHB a typical 2,000 sq. ft. home produces 1,600 pounds (or 6 cubic yards) of wasted Solid Sawn Wood alone. We need to revise how we frame houses so not to create so much waste. Lookup Optimal Value Engineering and learn how to frame homes with much less waste and that means $$.

The new mantra is "Reuse - Recycle - Reduce!".

4. Interior Air Quality
Green Building is the Quality of the Interior Air. The government banded the use of lead based paints inside homes decades ago. However, there are other things in your home that could still be making you and your family sick and these things are releasing high volumes of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) into the air. These are things like glues, paints and finishes. When you paint the interior of your new Green Built Home you should hardly smell the fumes of the paint if you were using low VOC paint. Back in the 80s builders used a Styrofoam like sheathing to help insulate the walls. These homes could now very well be out-gassing formaldehyde fumes. If the home was to burn, those walls will be releasing dangerous smoke fumes. Some of these gases could even be considered a carcinogen.

5. Energy Efficiency
This is the first item many people might think of. A Green Built Home will have high energy efficient appliances, HVAC and water heating and could include the use of Geothermal, Wind and Solar. Also the use of high efficient insulation protecting the interior envelope from the elements including radiant barriers. Insulating windows and doors have been common for years and are included in the specifications list. You might have to look hard to find an incandescent light bulb in a Green Built Home. Most all lighting will be Compact Fluorescent Lights or CFLs. Not only do CFLs use less electricity, they also create much less heat. Then your air conditioner has to work even harder to cool the air. Air Conditioners are rated in SEER numbers. Expect to find a SEER rating of 16 or higher in a Green Built Home. We recently replaced the old clunker of an air conditioner in our personal home with a high efficient SEER 16 unit and the results are fantastic! Especially my bill from the local power grid! Is your Dishwasher Energy-Star compliant?

6. Home Owner Education
Ok, the builder built a certified high energy efficient Green Built Home with all the bells and whistles. Unless the new Home Owner knows how to care for the home, all the work and planning that went into it may not be used to it's highest potential. So the Home Owner needs to understand what went into the new Green Built Home, how to maintain and program the Air Conditioner and to even how to operate the dishwasher properly. If all else fails, read the instruction books!

The benefits are great to those choosing to build or purchase a Green Built Home. Although Green Building is really nothing new. Just the word "Green" is the new buzz word. Many builders and design professionals have been practicing these principles for years. Just now with new interest in the environment, global warming and the use of energy saving products and procedures, Green Building has become more of a concern to the home buyer than ever before. Contact us for how we can help you design and build your Green Built Home.

Building a Home with Insulated Concrete Forms or ICF.

Jerry Karlovich, President of Korel Home Designs, is a Certified Green Professional accredited by the National Association of Home Builders. Download a copy of the NAHB's Green Building Guidelines

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