Beyond Traditional: Home Building Goes Green

With so many eyes looking towards how to reduce the harmful effects of our population's excesses on our planet, many people are looking for ways to go green in every aspect of their life. This also extends to the types of homes that are now being built. While traditional site built homes involve wood, stucco and/or brick, homeowners and builders alike are getting more creative by using less traditional home building items, such as one home here in the South made out of straw bale. No, it's not owned by one of the three little pigs. In fact, the goal is to be less of a pig when it comes to the environment.

This little straw house was designed much like any traditional home. It has standard doors, windows and, of course, a roof. But the walls themselves were created out of straw bales (the remnants of grain harvesting) and a stucco mixture of sand, dirt and pigment (for color). It took approximately 240 bales to create this 1900 square foot home. And the homeowner has seen a significant savings in energy costs within just the past year of living in it.

A traditionally built home's walls are only about 6 inches thick. However, a straw bale is 18-23 inches thick and solid. This helps regulate the temperature of the home, keeping it warm in the winter and cooler in the summer. The positioning of the home also helped keep energy costs down. By placing the side with large windows pointed to the south and using a ceiling fan to move the air around, the straw home was able to maintain a comfortable temperature inside (69 to 74 degrees Fahrenheit) even when temperatures dipped to 54 or soared to 95 outside. This allowed them to spend a grand total of around $500 on their utilities for the whole of last year.

While hay may be for horses, straw is definitely great for houses. I don't see the Big Bad Wolf coming around and blowing this one down anytime soon either. Recycling is a great start to helping our planet, but we have to think much broader. Owning a home is an important part of so many people's lives. Finding new and interesting ways to re purpose used articles as building materials or finding natural alternatives like this straw house can save us money while also helping save our planet. It's a win-win situation for everyone!

Tom Kile
Keller Williams Realty
(806) 678-1031 * http://allamarillohomes.com/

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Affordable Green Homes

Green homes are made affordable in two different ways. The purchase price of the home itself can be affordable for most middle class families, and even people looking to buy their first house. The other way green homes are made to be affordable is the actual cost of living after you move in and purchase one of these very well built houses. When people buy a house that is meant to save them on energy costs, it will lower the impact on the environment that you will have as you live in your home, and it will significantly lower the amount of money spent each month on your bills.

The average price for a green home is 250,000. This makes these types of homes accessible to nearly every income bracket out there. Energy efficient homes can start as low as 140,000, making it a perfect option for a first time home buyer. Some of the green homes available can have a price tag close to the half a million dollar range, which is appealing to families that need a larger home, but still take advantage of all the positives and savings of a green home.

The other major selling perk of a green home that makes it very affordable is the fact that your monthly bills for energy, gas, and water will be much less per square foot than a traditionally built home. This can allow someone to live in a larger house but with the same monthly cost, or simply save money overall because you are receiving these savings each month.

The two major areas of energy savings when it comes to your monthly bills is derived from energy savings with your HVAC system, and savings from the way your plumbing has been installed. Your HVAC system will run less often, yet keep your house at more of a constant temperature when it is built by a green home builder. All the plumbing in your house is installed properly with no leaks, and the pipes are all situated to waste less water. Both of these systems significantly cut out wasting energy in your home which will directly translate into dollars saved.

Green homes have the special characteristic of helping out your environment and community, and also helping out the homeowner each month by not wasting energy. This makes the home very appealing for any family, and makes these types of houses very affordable overall, for nearly any income level.

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Construction And The Environment - Effects On Climate

Climate change is definitely the most identifiable global concerns today. It has taken centre stage in world for and has raised many mitigative measures to counter the worrying trends. Construction is one of the contributors to climate change as can be derived from our previous examples, which are summarized below.

· Lowering of the water table, making it more difficult for plants to survive.

· Hampering with weather conditions for example by altering normal rain formation trends of a specific area.

· Clearing vegetation, reducing moisture available for rain formation.

· Reducing water available to water bodies with similar effects as above.

· Increasing water available in an area for evaporation and thus more precipitation in an area.

· Industrial and residential emissions, altering normal air conditions.

All these and more are ways in which construction activity has continually led to climate change. The conditions of an area are continually changed to form completely different ones. Some of the common direct results of these include:

· Depletion of the ozone layer, risking us to harmful radiations from the sun.

· Reduced precipitation, resulting to more cost of acquiring water.

· Increased precipitation, requiring more elaborate ways of removing excess water or even requiring project design changes.

· Reduction of food in the food chain, leading more food chain conflict and imbalances.

These are just but examples. The blatant truth is that climate change is becoming a very thorny issue and it needs to be addressed by all and sundry. All avenues available for averting this trend should be sought and followed. Key players in the construction industry ought to join hands with their counterparts, especially in the manufacturing industry, to come up with eco friendly products and procedures. Activities that lead to toxic emissions, for example, should be shunned as much as possible and if not, should be put at a minimum. Buildings should be provided with utilities that lead to less wastage, for example by reusing some materials. The issue of cost and value should be clearly addressed to make sure that the better advantage goes to the environment as opposed to the developer alone. Consultations should be done to ensure that all the hurdles to environmental conservation that arise in any project are properly handled at the earliest opportune moment.

It is always important to remember that our climate determines just how easy our tomorrow will be. It thus calls for all that are involved to put into consideration the idea of continuity in the construction project at hand.

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