Real Estate Green Living Tips: Save Money With a Sustainable Home

Reducing the amount of materials and energy required to build or maintain a home can help to substantially reduce your carbon footprint. At the same time, a green approach to home ownership ensures greater peace of mind, physical comfort, and preservation of a sustainable investment over the lifetime of the home.

Save money while living a more responsible green lifestyle - whether buying a condo, remodeling a home, planning new construction, or just wanting to take simple environmentally conscious steps forward. Here are some of the many interesting paths to a greener home:

Construction Methods

The use of recycled materials; formaldehyde-free insulation, nontoxic paint, and intelligent energy-aware construction methods are just a few of the ways to create a more Earth-friendly home.

• Optimum Value Engineering (OVE) techniques are those design and framing strategies for wood or "stick-built" construction that were developed by the Forest Products Laboratory in collaboration with the National Association of Home Builders. Buildings employing OVE practices use less lumber and achieve higher insulation values without compromising structural integrity.

• That translates into lower construction costs and less energy consumption over the life of the home. The amount of lumber bought, transported, wasted due to overage, and transported away from the site as trash is greatly reduced, while thermal and acoustic insulation is boosted.

• A study conducted by the National Association of Home Builders Research Center (NAHBRC) found that OVE framing techniques can potentially save as much as $1.20 per square foot when compared with conventional wood framing methods.

• Pre-fabricated architecture is also making progressive strides forward. An entire generation of green designers is offering aesthetically award-winning houses and condos that can be built quickly in a modular manner, because much of the work is done off-site. That not only reduces environmental impact but also saves the homebuyer substantial expense.

Systems and Appliances

There are a variety of ways to harness green energy as a homeowner, and one of the best is to install appliances rated with the Energy Star designation. Some states even offer "healthy home" certification for energy efficiency that can qualify the homeowner for tax rebates or other perks.

• Passive heating and cooling techniques can be also employed by almost any homeowner to capture or deflect solar heat with a reflective roof, intensive insulation, or just strategically placed old-fashioned ceiling fans. An open floor plan with good cross-ventilation, in fact, can actually reduce energy bills significantly by making a home easier to cool in summer - so green options do not necessarily have to be radically futuristic.

• For those who decide to install solar panels or wind turbines, there is an increasing amount of government support being offered. Both state and federal tax incentives are available, depending upon where you live, and many local utility companies also provide assistance.

• The utility company may, for example, help install the equipment or share the cost of the system. Homeowners who tie their panels and turbines into a public grid can also "run the meter backwards" by selling the excess energy that they produce back to the utility company. Then the power will be redistributed so it can be used by other customers who share the grid.

Green Products for the Home

Homeowners can also choose more environmentally safe and beneficial products such as "on-demand" water heaters, energy efficient light bulbs, low-VOC paints, and flooring or counter top products made from renewable materials like bamboo, cork, and recycled plastic or glass.

• Conventional house paints contain toxic Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC). But low or zero-VOC paints and finishes perform just as well and they are more pleasant to use because they do not have the strong odors associated with high-VOC paints.

• Cork bark can be sustainably harvested without damaging the health of the cork tree. Then it grows back within a year or two. Cork is a great insulator and is unusually resilient - making it exceptionally comfortable underfoot. It also cleans up easily and is acoustically superior, so it is a quiet choice for any room in the house.

• Bamboo is harder and more durable than many varieties of hardwood, yet it also happens to be the fastest growing plant on the planet. As one of the most rapidly renewable sources of potential building materials on Earth, it is also beautiful to look at and gives off a warmth and glow that will enhance any ambience at a highly competitive price.

If you decide to build an outdoor deck, check out the newer decking materials made from recycled plastics. They look and perform like wood but have none of the harsh chemicals and annoying splinters that are found in conventional pressure-treated lumber. Maintain a healthy canopy of trees outside to shade the home and reduce air conditioning costs, keeping in mind that trees and plants clean the air - making the environment better for everyone.

Jeffery A. Hammerberg, Author
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Sustainable architect - make the world a place better to live, a Structure at a time

We hear thrown around expression, but what is sustainable architecture - this? What we support us? Is "Green" linked? What are the benefits of it? What does a sustainable architect do? I wish the answer was simple, and in fact it is.

Sustainable means build or develop in a way that will let us continue to make it during a long period of time without adverse effects. If we abuse a material that is insufficient, could cause us irreparable problems. For example, if our construction is heavily dependent on which uses large quantities of water in their manufacturing and materials is made in an area with a shortage of water, which may be a problem. If we design a tropical garden which requires a constants and large quantities of water for its maintenance in a desert environment, which could also be a big problem.

Now that we have an ideal of what are the problems, lets take a look at how we can adjust the way in which we be sustainable. Sustainable is not a concept dealing with individual aspects, but rather in a holistic manner. If it's common sense, it is generally sustainable. If you live in a region where masonry products are easily produced and available from local resources, it would probably make sense to use in the construction. It also makes sense to use local plants and materials cover instead of having their transported from China to the United States. It also makes sense to use the local climate to your advantage. If you live in a cold climate, and natural solar heating maximization through light would make sense. If you live in a very hot environment, then the hot rays of the sun shading would be logical to use to cool the structure and comfort and energy savings.

Sustainable also involves urban planning. Ask yourself the question: would it make more sense to build a structure in an area already developed with existing roads and utilities, or perhaps even to reuse an existing structure to start from scratch? Certainly most of the people with a brain works would say that something is better then to start from nothing, and yet often see us communities called houses "cookie cutter" which are completely artificial and without life. If the development would be better to do with what already exists, by reusing or adapting existing structures and areas, certainly the results would be incredible.

Abhay is an architect of a young entrepreneur with a passion for logical sustainable architecture. It would consider him a sustainable architect, so articles that you will read will be on sustainability. The filter that will always be used is: is it meaningful? You will discover that being absolutely sustainable makes financial sense.

http://sustainablearchitect.org/sustainable-architect/sustainable-architecture-%E2%80%93-what-is-it
http://sustainablearchitect.org/

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Sustainable construction for education

Sustainable construction is now one of the agenda. There is currently the social, political and legislative pressure to ensure that new school buildings are considered "sustainable". It is a part of your disk for an eco-school. This includes any shelters and viewpoints, so that new classrooms.

With so many things to think about everything mainly focused on the budget and on time, how can you ensure that your school building is truly sustainable and causes minimal impact on the manufacturing, construction, life environment; and, at the end of his life, demolition. Our recommendation would be to choose wood for sustainability and the site of manufacture of the budget and the speed of delivery.

Wood is the material of construction only natural, renewable, recyclable in the world: it has been used in the construction of several thousand years. Now with the FSC or PEFC certification you can be confident in its way of sourcing.

To keep the focus on the budget with sustainability, we suggest that you look at off-site manufacturing: buildings that are prepared before delivery to the site, factory and provide large savings on the costs of construction during the periods of build reduced and disruption of the site: systems such as shell's Cabinco MPL buildings. Newspapers are factory of precision designed and then delivered to the site ready for fast and precise, to an individually designed sustainable building construction.

More the proportion of wood in your new school building, most likely a fully recyclable building envelope. Wood does not have to be restricted to just the outer skin which gives the appearance of sustainability, but may extend to interior walls, floors, Windows, doors, roof and same structure the final roofing material through such options as the Cedar shingles. A solution of solid wood.

Checklist for sustainable buildings

MaterialsNoise sustainable supply, odor & dust in the constructionWaste to landfill sites in the course of manufacture and constructionMaintenance and energy required in the use of the buildingRecyclability after the end of life of the building.Global carbon footprint

Carbon footprint

Carbon footprint is an assessment of the impact of the building on the school environment. It focuses on all aspects of the processes involved in the delivery of your solution built in detail and includes such things as the energy used in manufacturing, where this energy source, if it is renewable; energy used in the transport of materials, including used fuel; energy of phase of construction and waste; energy service; and, finally, the end of the energy of life - or step in the case of wood that can be reused as fuel.

Research shows that wooden buildings have the lowest carbon footprint of the life of all.

A company with a real focus on providing sustainable buildings will provide all the information on its Web site. Cabinco is the United Kingdom award winning expert in the design and construction of school buildings sustainable and eco-schools everywhere. Visit the Web site for more details.

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