Burnside's Inn: A Model Green Home
When it comes to building homes, Bob Burnside sees shades of green. “A lot of people say it’s [either] green or it’s not,” he explains, referring to today’s typical home. “Well, that’s not always the case. Let’s find incremental improvement. Let’...
Portland's Floating Solar Home
When my wife Kathryn and I decided to build our next home, we had a number of design objectives. Our primary goal was to build a home that would come as close as practical to net-zero energy performance. Net-zero is the concept that a home produces as much energy as it consumes. The vast majority of...
What Goes Around
Look at the homes on your block, in your neighborhood or pretty much anywhere else around the world today, and chances are they all are the same basic shape. Sure, you might notice a few A-frames here and there, or perhaps a postmodern architectural wonder that breaks the design mold. But pretty ...
Growing a Green Home
Linda Lessner describes herself, her husband Michael and their four children as “central Austin folk.” And being that green building has been central to Austin for more than 20 years, it’s little surprise that the Lessner’s home is in all probability the greenest one on ...
Taking the LEED
Homebuyers no longer have to become instant experts to find homes with high efficiency and environmental performance. Certification labels like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) help consumers understand a home’s actual environmental content, and guide professional buil...
Recyclable Homes
Each year, more than 100 million tons of building-related construction and demolition debris are sent to landfills in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That debris accounts for about 40 percent of the solid waste stream in the U.S., the EPA estimates. Over the next...
High-Performance Prefabs
The one shining light in the real estate industry these days seems to be in green construction. Today it is far more chic to say your house is green than to mention you have granite countertops in the kitchen. Many homeowners are foregoing traditional materials like granite for more renewable o...
Watch Your Water!
Nothing drives me crazier than seeing lawn sprinklers going off during a rainstorm. Potable water is a precious resource we must manage carefully and responsibly. By adopting water-conserving strategies and making use of a growing number of products on the market today, homeowners can not only ...
Off-the-Shelf Green Homes
As we pointed out earlier in this issue, green building is one of the few bright spots in today’s housing industry. That’s good news for home buyers and builders alike, as it’s an indication of a healthy trend that shows no signs of slowing down. Even better, a growing number ...
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