Posts Tagged ‘homes’

Tour the 21st Century Victorian Demonstration Green Home built by Zetland Homes LLC in NH. Built under the US Green Building Council LEED for Homes Pilot Program. Features Smart R high efficiency insulation, geothermal heat, and a variety of other “green” features. 2008 Cornerstone gold award winner for “most energy efficient design solution” and “best home under $450000″. Energy Star five star plus home.

Sustainability is the biggest environmental issue of the 21st century. More people and businesses as well as the global community are coming to realize that embracing eco-friendly principles is the only way to help save Mother Earth. Now more than ever, the meaning of the green movement has found its mark.

Today, that mark had found its way to the Australian continent and surprisingly, the Australian consumer is greener than many people have realized. As a matter of fact, a survey conducted by the Domestic Energy Consumption in Australia revealed that more than three- quarters of Australians accepted that the climate change is a major problem and they are prepared to make sacrifices and necessary changes to support the green movement.

Because of this awareness, the green principle had not only spread though the different industry across Australia, it had also dominated the Melbourne house builders market and Urbanedge Homes is one of the few home builders in Victoria who had incorporated green principles as a part of their new home designs and building a house options.

Urbanedge Homes is proud to introduce its newest range of new homes – the GreenSmart homes. GreenSmart homes feature sustainable design principles which can help reduce water and energy usage while still offering the latest in new home designs and styles.

Through careful solar orientation on the site, the sun’s energy is maximize throughout the year, while natural ventilation methods are used to circulate air in and around Urbanedge green home. Effective insulation is used to prevent heat loss and heat gain through walls, roofs, and floors, while heat loss through windows is reduced through high-performance glazing.

Urbanedge Homes green homes demonstrate improved energy, resource and water efficiency, which in turn will reduce household running costs and green house emissions into the environment.

With GreenSmart, homeowners’ will not only achieve an environmentally responsible green home that is cleaner and healthier for their family to live in, but they will also be able to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle with cheaper running costs.

For more information on Urbanedge GreenSmart homes and other Urbanedge house and land packages log on to http://www.urbanedgehomes.com.au/greensmart.aspx or visit one of Urbanedge display centers in Victoria and new show homes in Melbourne.

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Green homes are eco-friendly homes that are energy efficient and use ecological design and sustainable resources. There has been a tremendous increase in awareness of the benefits of green building in America among builders and home owners alike. With home builders finding it easier to construct green homes, the number of green homes constructed throughout the country has gone up remarkably.

Ecological concerns and the increasing awareness of the advantages of green homes have led to an upsurge in green homes in the country. Concerns about the impact their homes have on the environment have prompted some homebuyers to opt for green homes.

Building green homes is no longer a remote concept these days. Over disturbing facts about global warming and indoor air pollution, today, the top priority of the National Home Builders Association and the American Institute of Architects is constructing green buildings.

There is sufficient data around that indicate that the building of green homes is on the rise. According to the figures provided by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) (who developed the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building rating system), the number of buildings with LEED status in America has increased from 38 in 2002 to 669 now. Green buildings are progressively entering the mainstream with more and more buildings getting LEED certification.

Given that green buildings do not cost very much more than traditional buildings, and that they actually reduce energy bills, the building of green homes is on the rise. A green building is not only less expensive to live in but also spikes in value by 7.5 percent on average and improves return on investment by 6.6 percent on average.

Green building concepts begin to rise everywhere as the number of individuals who want to remodel, build or buy green homes are rapidly increasing. Architects and developers are responding to satisfy this growing demand. Green buildings have been found to appreciate faster than traditional buildings.

What was once a patchwork of green buildings in several cities has now increased to encompass whole communities and neighborhoods. According to a McGraw-Hill Construction survey in 2006, about two-thirds of builders would be building green homes in America this year. Green buildings are firmly mainstream now with federal government and 15 states requiring new public buildings to meet the LEED standards. In fact, four U.S. states and 17 cities offer incentives for private buildings built to LEED standards.

With rising government initiatives, consumer interest and the number of green developers and builders, the green building revolution is all set to go to a new level.

Structural Insulated Panel or SIP is the new buzz-word in building construction industry as 21st century “green” building material. SIPs can be used in the construction of exterior walls, floors and roofs of residential and commercial buildings offering advantages of low cost and energy conservation over traditional wooden frame construction. SIP addresses two major concerns while building “green” home – energy efficiency and diminishing natural resources.

The general characteristics of all SIPs are two exterior skins sandwiching a rigid foam plastic core made up of low cost expanded polystyrene material. The skins most generally used are oriented strand boards (OSB), plywood or gypsum board. The resulting sandwich panel is exceptionally solid, cost effective and energy conserving which can be used as load bearing walls, partitions and roof insulation.

When used as a load-bearing wall or roof insulation, the two skins act as lean columns constantly supported by the rigid core to resist buckling and compression. When bending is applied to the panel due to a live or a wind load, the skins take most of the compressive and tensile forces and the core offers resistance to shear. Skins and rigid core acts internally to provide exceptional strength to the structure.

The most important characteristic of Structural Insulated Panel which has led to rapid growth in its demand is excellent energy efficiency and improved thermal performance. Today, one of the major challenges for any home owner is to control increasing energy costs. SIPs are practically airtight panels due to the nature of material used and fabrication process. This results in less cooling during winters and less hitting in summer! Hence buildings made with SIP panels require less expensive cooling and heating systems than a normal building saving more energy and costs. A building constructed with SIPs takes less time than the one with wooden frame. This saves you labor and wastage at the job-site. Overall building a home with SIPs can save you energy, costs, time and labor too!

Design of Structural Insulated Panel requires good amount of structural drafting & design services.

To know how we can help you design SIPs for your home email us at info@outsourcestructuraldrafting.com or visit http://www.outsourcestructuraldrafting.com

For every square foot of lawn that we grow, it takes at least 25 gallons of water to keep it alive throughout the year. For a 2,000-square-foot lawn, that’s 50,000 gallons of water

You don’t have a hundred miles of grass to mow, but you may as well. Using a gas lawnmower pollutes the air just as much as a hundred-mile road trip! Though alternative forms of energy are on the rise, carbon-spewing coal is still the number one resource used to produce our electricity.

This defeats the sole purpose of the concept of Green Home…

Artificial Grass is an ideal alternative. The usage of FieldTurf as an alternative to the natural greens is not only economic interms of ongoing maintenance, but also provides that natural grass “look-feel-n-play” effect<input />.

FieldTurf is a proven product, endorsed by various environmental agencies after numerous cycles of quality testing on the environmental-friendly aspect of it.

FieldTurf is proven clearly safe for kids to play on it. FieldTurf is the first artificial grass product to receive ‘Lead-Free’ certificate in the world – means 100% safer and environmental-friendly.

Benefits of FieldTurf:

1. Conserves Water: FieldTurf saves the usage of water. Till date FieldTurf installations have saved over 25 billion gallons of water across the world.

2. Protects Groundwater: Pollution due to Pesticides and fertilizers is the next big. With no need for potentially harmful pesticides and fertilizers, FieldTurf helps protect groundwater from getting contaminated.

3. Say NO to chemicals and pesticides: Usage of pesticides and fertilizers contribute to global pollution much more than the carbon emission from vehicles. FieldTurf totally eliminates the chemical and pesticide usage.

4. Totally Recyclable, No Nylon: FieldTurf is manufactured from 100% polyethylene – no nylon! – and is 100% recyclable

5. LEED Credits: The usage of FieldTurf contributes to total ratings under LEED credit for New Construction in several categories

Maximizing the insulation for your green home is the most important step you can take towards reducing the heating and cooling energy requirements of your home and conserving energy. Many options are available to you, such as fiberglass batt, rigid or blown-in insulation. Let us look at cellulose blown-in insulation, which, in my opinion, is one of the greenest options available today.

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Building Material and Wood Technology, Department of Natural Resources Conservation, considers cellulose insulation a smart choice and recommends its use.

Why Use Blown-in Insulation?

Cellulose blown-in insulation is made of post-consumer, recycled paper, most often newspapers. With the new blowers available today, the insulation can be blown in and compacted to a high density. This will eliminate the settling of the insulation, which is what has happened with blown-in insulation applied 10 or so years ago.

By the way, did you know that fiberglass batt insulation also settles, especially if it was not installed properly, which sadly happens very often?

Blown-in insulation is the best option to make sure that the insulation is applied tightly and continuously around electrical outlets, piping, wiring and ductwork. It can reduce air leaks considerably, compared to having batt insulation installed. All those special boxes you can buy to prevent air leaks around electrical outlets have been developped to fix improperly installed batt insulation.

Doing it right in the first place is better, cheaper and saves you headaches and money in the future. A tight, high R-value insulation will also increase the comfort of your green home, and will minimize the required energy use for heating and cooling. A solar heating system can be sized smaller and will therefore also be more affordable.

Most providers of cellulose blown-in insulation operate within a limited geographical area, because the transportation of the insulation beyond a certain range is not feasible, due to the high ratio of volume/pound of the insulation. This means that you would be fulfilling another critical green component: buy local!

Where would I apply Blown-in insulation?

Besides insulating all exterior walls with blown-in insulation, you can also apply it in the garage ceiling and the attic floor.

Those living in the cold climates are familiar with the dangers of having ice-dams form. The dams form when the attic insulation has gaps and leaks. The heat from the rooms below will escape upwards and melt the snow on the roof. It then freezes again and an ice dam forms. More snow is melted, ice builds up and thaws again. The ice dam grows. The water from the melting ice cannot run down on the roof, because it is blocked by the ice dam. The path of least resistance is through the roof and into your home.

It takes skilled contractors to install batt insulation correctly at the edges where walls, attic and roof framing meet. Often the contractors do not take the time, or do not know how, to prevent gaps and leaks in the batt insulation they apply. Blown-in insulation will reach those nooks and crannies and fill them up with insulation, thereby preventing heat from escaping and ice dams from forming.

Additional Benefits of Blown-in Insulation

Highly pact cellulose insulation inherently also prevents air penetration. Fiberglass batt insulation relies on correctly installed sheathing, gaskets, siding, etc.. Unfortunately these are very rarely installed correctly.

In addition to providing excellent thermal insulation, cellulose blow-in insulation will also provide very good sound proofing between rooms, from noisy pipes, showers and bathtubs. The spaces around bathtub and shower basins can easily be filled with blown-in insulation. Family members coming home late and wanting to take a shower, will no longer wake everyone up when the water runs. Of course, they might still slam the doors.

Insulating the wall between the family room and adjoining bedrooms is another good application of blown-in insulation. You will be able to sleep, while other family members play music, watch TV, and laugh in the family room.

If you have a door to separate the family room, you can turn the thermostat down in this room when it is not used for longer periods of time. With the insulation in between the family room and adjoining rooms, you will not loose heat from the warmer rooms to the cooler family room.

Any room that is only used occasionally, such as guest rooms, rooms for children who are away at college, can be thermally separated from the rest of the house by filling the walls with insulation.

What about Mold?

Cellulose insulation is treated with non-toxic boric compounds to protect it from mold. This treatment also provides fire and insect resistance.

Conclusion

I believe that one of the best options for providing good, lasting, environmentally friendly, non-toxic insulation for your home is to use blown-in cellulose insulation.

The recent renewable energy concept married with green world technology resulted into energy green homes for the public. Energy green homes are coupled with renewable resources towards energy alternatives and saving energy. This energy saving policy is into providing electricity through alternate energies for the whole family needs.

This can be started through many ways and few are solar, wind and water. Solar energy is popular and widely known to people nowadays.  Scalability is the main advantage with this solar energy. This solar energy at lesser volumes can be useful in storage water heaters and large quantities are good enough to meet typical family needs successfully.

In these energy green homes usage of energy alternatives is bit costlier in the form of initial investment. But still there are few chances are open to save money in installing these energy alternative resources through personnel effort and DIY projects. This is the reason before you start your new home give a proper thought about these energy green homes and make plans in the initial designs for energy alternatives and energy saving options. These way further stages can be easily handled towards making the new home suitable for green world. These initial design should be in a way that make footprint of building South facing in utilizing proper heating and cooling from the nature. Make arrangements for high-efficiency windows, and use stone and other materials which can take passive solar energy successfully. This way a home can be made suitable for green world of the future.

Keep a special feature of energy green home with windmill for the proper utilization of wind energy. As same as solar panels you can keep windmills on rooftops, open spaces, patios, etc.  These all will work as best energy alternatives and totally pollution free for your green world. This is the way all the people should make their step towards environmental friendly world for everyone’s safe living on this earth.

Interested with this idea, before you get started on your solar/wind energy make sure you have the right tools by visiting this site, you will find the correct step-by-step guideline, step-by-step video instruction, where you can watch a solar panel being built and wired up, right from the comfort of your home

With energy efficiency and green technologies at the forefront of everyone’s minds we’re all thinking about how we can improve the green performance of our homes. The usual methods of improving heat retention with double glazing and insulation as well as the possibility of utilising some green technologies such as boilers are something we can all do. However when it comes to building a new home, take a look at these magnificent green design masterpieces. Combining such luxury with such energy consciousness is a real achievement.

Crossway: Kent, England

This magnificent four bedroom family home is essentially one large timbrel vault and is situated in the lush Kent countryside.  It was built with minimising the need for gas, water & electricity in mind whilst being light, airy and spacious at the same time. As well as using local materials and tradesmen to benefit the immediate area, it was ensured that green targets were met through the use of the highest quality insulation, triple glazing and total air tightness. Its design really is unique, the interior is magnificent and it’s totally carbon neutral!

Lux et Tepidus: Toronto, Canada

This stunning 3500 square foot home is even aligned slightly out of joint with the passing street for better solar energy alignment, the exterior is constructed of structural insulated panels and all interior partitions made of wood-stud. A south facing, massively glazed wall maximises light and solar heat entering the house straight onto a slate covered masonry wall which provides thermal mass as well as looking stunning! This is a truly striking & luxurious property both inside and out and the eco features are engrained perfectly within the design.

Woods End: Norfolk, England

Set in two acres of woodland in the Norfolk countryside, this impressive 3000 square foot eco-home was the 2009 winner of TV competition ‘I Own Britain’s Best Home’. Built from the ground up by Amanda Barrington, the home costs only £500 a year to heat and fully utilises solar gain as well as the stunning woodland landscape and passing stream to do so. The simple & modern yet homely style of both the build and the interior fit the surroundings perfectly and it has won many design, architectural and green awards. This luxurious yet energy efficient project works seamlessly and is definitely worth the title of Britain’s best home.

Heather’s Home: Weatherford, Texas, USA

This amazing eco-build was the first home in the state of Texas to receive LEED for Homes Platinum Certification and amazingly for Texas the heating/cooling bill averages only $20 to $30 a month! Built at around $117 per square foot, the house features numerous green technologies including a rainwater collection system and a water heater that needs no tank and is powered by rooftop solar panels. Again the interior is stunning and all the eco-features are seamlessly engrained, another perfect example of luxury and sustainability working hand in hand.

The Costa Mesa Green Home: Orange County, California, USA

Another home to be the first to receive Platinum Certification, this time it’s a first for Orange County in California. At a massive 5000 square foot it is the largest and possibly most luxurious of those featured and exceeds the local energy efficiency targets by a massive 40%! This stunning green project has optimised solar orientation and is built with sustainable materials throughout. It also features numerous energy efficient technologies including intelligent ventilation, a state-of-the-art green HVAC (heating, ventilation & air conditioning) system and energy star lighting. Creating energy efficiency in such a massive, contemporary and luxurious property is definitely a remarkable achievement.

Greening your home and environmental awareness and find out where to recycle different items in your home in thisfree environmental video. Expert: Nili Nathan Contact: earth911.org Bio: Nili Nathan, host of “Great Healing Getaways”, is the creator of a television series and Web site on holistic health, where she researches, writes, and reports. Filmmaker: Nili Nathan