New Eco-Friendly Building Standards Get the Green Treatment

I currently reside in Maplewood Missouri, an up and coming suburb just outside of St. Louis. The town is close to all of the major highways, so I can get just about anywhere in under fifteen minutes. It’s nice. A few years ago I lived out in the country. It was nice too. A little bit of a commute to get around, but there were rocks and trees and plants and things, and I could go fishing on the lake and take long, leisurely walks in the woods. The house I lived in was a little one-and-a-half story three bedroom that was built into the side of a hill. It was kind of neat to walk out of the upstairs bedroom onto level ground without having to descend any stairs. There were some problems though. It was an older place and in the back of the house where the rooms were underground, there was a pretty bad leak when there was a heavy rain. The water would eventually leak through under the stairs and soak part of the carpet in the living room. Also, every once in awhile, the septic tank would get indigestion and burp a little sludge back up through the sewers. One thing was for certain however, part of the house being underground sure helped with the energy bills. They were a little over half of what it had cost to heat the above ground home that I had lived in before.

Now new building standards and better longer lasting materials are providing new house buyers with more ways to go “green,” without spending a lot of the green stuff.

A new program, the Green Building Initiative, provides a rating system just like the Olympics: gold, silver, and bronze for builder to rack up green certified points by using sustainable and energy saving techniques when building new homes. So if your house is built into the side of a hill, an in-fill, that’s worth nine points. If you plant shade trees around your house and install overhangs-that’s worth seven points. Builders get five points for installing energy efficient appliances. The estimated energy savings for building a “green” house are about 10 to 15 percent because of increased efficiency.

There are two ways to make a home “green” and get points: preserving natural resources and conserving energy in the home. Starting at the roof level, you can use metal concrete or wood instead of asphalt. They absorb less heat. Having a light colored roof helps also. Installing a skylight also lets more natural light into the rooms, reducing the cost of artificial lighting. You can use recycled materials in te framing and flooring, low flow toilets and showerheads. South facing windows won’t face into the afternoon sun and can save on cooling your home and using high efficiency appliances can really rack up points.

Fannie Mae now offers an Energy Efficient Mortgage for green design and construction that includes financing for redeveloping in urban neighborhoods. Green houses haven’t really caught on here yet, but with the new rating system and guidelines, more and more builders might be willing to go green.