Today’s Green Homes
What is in homes of today that make them greener than homes made even just ten years ago? To start with, new home designs have incorporated many different innovations to make them more efficient at saving energy. EnergyStar homes are springing more and more every year.
For an EnergyStar home to be qualified as such, it has to be at least 15% more energy efficient than a home built before 2004, and it also has to include energy saving features such that it’s 20 to 30% more efficient than a standard residence.
Starting with new construction, green homes of today incorporate many energy saving ideas. For example, when it comes to insulation in between walls, instead of using the old traditional fiberglass insulation, this has been replaced by recycled cellulose insulation. This insulation material provides much better insulation and fills up spaces in the walls and in the attic much better than fiberglass. There are a couple of different ways it can be installed, either in dry form, or by turning it into a semi liquid that can be sprayed in between walls. Cellulose provides a much better thermal protection layer than standard methods.
With green homes, you have a choice when it comes to power sources. No longer are you limited to being connected to your standard utility power grids, you have many other renewable power sources including solar, wind, and even geothermal depending on location. You can even combine solar power and wind turbines for a more reliable power source. These can easily be incorporated into new construction as well as in existing homes. There are many advantages including not having utility bills or worrying about brown and black outs or other power interruptions.
Besides these alternative power sources, you also can incorporate high-efficiency appliances that are currently on the market and are comparable in cost to other appliances that are not “high-efficiency.” Some of these options include efficient heating and cooling systems, stoves, clothes watchers, dishwashers, and heating and cooling systems, as well as such energy saving devices as tankless water heaters. You also don’t have to limit yourself to certain power sources. If you’re still connected to the grid, for example, you can use natural gas or propane as a more efficient energy source that other traditional “grid” resources.
Insulating factors matter, too, and windows are no exception. Double paned, high-efficiency windows can do a number of things to help with energy savings. Some are constructed with inert gases between the panes so that harmful UV rays are kept out, even as they keep heat or cool from escaping from within the house. If you choose not to replace your windows, you can still save energy, such as applying films to the windowpanes to seal them up and protect against UV rays, less expensively.
So even though you can build a green home right from the start and it will make your home more efficient, you might be asking how much more it’s going to cost you to build that home. And the answer is that it will cost roughly about 17% more in initial cost that will to build a standard home, but that the extra expense will be offset by the energy savings you’ll incur from that home.
You can find out more about EnergyStar homes and appliances online. Many of the materials, like the cellulose insulation, inline water heaters, and many other green items can be found at local home improvement stores, saving on shipping costs. There are many websites for those do it yourself people that provide plans and kits for alternative energy sources.
About the author: Jerry Dyess specializes in Texas Electricity news and Texas Electric prices.