How Does Your Home Rate?
The word on the street is that 2007 will be the "tipping point" for green building. Undeniably, green building has turned the corner over the last year or so, and residential green building rating systems are helping to develop the market.These programs quantify what "green" really means by ...
Green Communities on the Rise
Doing more with less. That could be the motto of two green residential communities, currently in the planning stages in Bozeman, Mont., and Salem, Ore. Although the two communities are being built by different developers with different resources, strategies, approaches and goals, both will incorp...
The New American Home
Every year since 1984, a special showcase home has been built in conjunction with the International Builders' Show, the nation's largest trade show focused on home construction. The home is called The New American Home, and its builder has a pretty tall order to fill. The home is esse...
Green Pioneer
Page Wilson had worked as a soybean and rice farmer in Arkansas for 28 years when he decided it was time for a career change. Inspired by the shapes and functionality of the buildings on his farm - and seeing a need for environmentally conscious housing in the area - Wilson migrated 30 miles west...
SH Bookshelf: Beginnings and Endings
Two new books provide details on how to efficiently build homes as well as take them apart. Prefabulous: The House of Your Dreams, Delivered Fresh From the Factory, by Sheri Koones (a Smart HomeOwner contributing writer), demystifies the concept of the prefabricated house, and explains why these ...
Eco-Friendly Flooring
When it comes to flooring, you don't have to give up style and aesthetics to turn your home green. In fact, many of today's homeowners may find themselves choosing eco-friendly flooring options primarily for visual appeal, with the green and healthy aspects of their selections pleasant side benefits...
Lighting Up With Solar
A new Tiffany-style line of Solar Post Cap Lights has just been introduced by Maine Ornamental of Bainbridge Island, Wash. Each decorative outdoor light, designed to fit on a standard four-by-four-inch or six-by-six-inch deck post, is equipped with a solar lens that charges two AA batteries during t...
Disappearing Wires
Retrofitting lighting systems in existing homes can be a tricky task, requiring homeowners or electricians to drill holes in walls, pull wires through tight spaces or use unsightly extension cords. But FlatWire is about to change all that. Manufactured by Carrollton, Ga.-based Southwire Co., Flat...
Green Prefabs
It's getting easier all the time to go green. Latest example: Living Homes, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based developer of prefab homes, has just introduced three prefabricated, LEED-certified homes, making it the first company in the country to offer these types of green-certified residences to consumer...
The Renewed American Home
Building a home, notes designer James Lucia, is "like a game of checkers." But remodeling a historic home, he says, is "like a game of chess," since the degree of difficulty is exponentially higher, especially when you're trying to incorporate green and efficient components into the remodel. ...
Log Homes Go Green
sOne of the oldest and simplest types of residential construction, log homes have always been green, since they're produced from what is fundamentally a renewable resource - timber. But in recent years, manufacturers of log homes have taken additional steps to address such issues as sustainabilit...
Resin-Free IceStone
In the March/April 2007 issue, in the article titled "Best Bets for Kitchens and Baths," we erroneously reported that IceStone, a durable surface material designed for use as countertops, backsplashes, tabletops, and interior walls and flooring, was made with resins, among other materials. In fac...
Getting Into Hot Water
Hot water: Endless streams of it, like lava flowing from a volcano. That's the image that springs to mind when one thinks of tankless water heaters. These units, sometimes called on-demand water heaters, are clever devices. Small enough to mount on a wall, they have the power to instantly and eff...
New Life for an Old Kitchen
Eric Loebel and Ruby Gates are no strangers to the concept of sustainability. Eric works for a publishing company that borrows its name from Celilo Falls, on the Columbia River east of Portland, Ore. The falls were silenced when The Dalles Dam was built in 1957, causing the demise of the Columbia...
Harvesting the Rain
While the average American homeowner uses about 69 gallons of water per day for everything from taking showers to flushing toilets to washing laundry, Billy Kniffen and his wife use just 18 gallons each. The Menard, Texas, homeowners have a good incentive for keeping careful tabs on their water usag...
