Where to begin
When starting your remodeling project the first step should be finding a contractor who is LEED accredited. (Leadership in energy and environmental design.) By making sure your contractor is LEED accredited you will ensure yourself a builder who has the experience and training to complete your green project. The U.S. Green Building Council offers training programs for contractors and builders. Contacting them or visiting their website may be the best place to start your search for a remodeler for your home.

Choosing the best products for your home
When it comes down to making a decision about the products, appliances, and building methods best suited for your home out of the thousands which are available for you to choose from; it will come down to overall cost and how deeply green you wish your home to be. For almost every decision which comes up in the planning process there are invariably two ways to go; green, and greener. One example of this would be your hot water heater. The green option is selecting a tank size best suited for your home and usage to minimize waste and heat loss; the greener option is installing a tankless water heater because there is no waste or heat loss, you simply get hot water as you need it. As you embark on this journey keep this in mind as you go.

Incorporating green into an existing structure
Dependant on the extent of your remodeling job and where you need to begin in the building process will determine the first steps you will take. If you are doing a complete remodel or building an addition onto your home the first step would be with your wall studs. A conventially built home uses 2×4 wooden studs; for the green builder a good item to look at would be wall studs made from recycled materials. These are beneficial in many ways such as they will not rot like standard lumber can, they are not prone to termite infestations, they keep much material out of landfills, and best of all if they ever need taken down they can be recycled over and over. Another good option is using lumber harvested from sustainable forestry methods. This is another example of green/greener.

For wall covering there is really only one green option; it is called ecorock. Conventional drywall is the most used and manufactured building material in the world, the process used to make conventional drywall puts 51 million tons of Co2 into the atmosphere and use an estimated 1% of all energy in the United States. Ecorock’s manufacturing process eases the burden on the environment drastically.

Selecting wall paints to cover the finished Ecorock once you have it installed can be where it gets tricky. There are low VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) emitting paints, paints which are supposed to emit no VOC’s, but the regulations on manufacturing and product labels can be loose at best. The greenest option would be to go with a natural paint. Natural paints are made from dyes and pigments made from plants and organic compounds. The downside to natural paints is they cost on average 20% more then conventional paints, they take longer to dry 2-3 days instead of 1 day, and they are harder to find. The upsides to natural paints is that considering how long paints tend to stay on the walls of our homes the extra cost and drying time will be well worth the effort. Conventional paints are the second largest cause of VOC emission second only to automobiles. VOC’s have been proven to cause cancer and many other major health effects.

Energy Star
When it comes to putting appliances in your newly green remodeled home do not just look for the energy star logo. It has been proven that many of the energy star rated products are not as efficient as the label states. It is very important to ask many questions either of your builder or the salespeople where you are planning on making your purchases. The Home Depot also has an Eco-Options designation for many of the items they sell. Not all energy star rated appliances qualify for the Eco-Options designation, when possible this is the best choice.

When you are looking to remodel your home to green standards keep in mind the long term costs. Greener homes cost less to operate and maintain over the course of their lifetime. You and your family will be healthier, breathe easier and sleep better at night knowing you are doing everything you can to protect our environment.

When you first start the process of selecting materials and layouts for the structure itself, there can be lots of changes to get things the way you want them.  One of the byproducts of all of these changes is the countless amount of paperwork, design specifications and drawings that are generated.  With so much paper and other materials going into the effort, there is often a large amount of waste that can contribute to the amount of trash in the environment.

Whether it is the inks from printing, excessive energy use for computers or other items, when you decide to build green you should consider using an electronic design process.

The electronic design process will use some paper, there is no way around it due to signatures that must be gathered for official documents.  However most, if not all of the actual design and specification process can be completed electronically.  When this occurs, changes are made easily in a CAD or other design program.  Those changes can be sent electronically via email or other methods that will help reduce the use of paper.

Consider this.  If you make only 5 changes to your plans that are drafted traditionally on paper and printed out, that is at least 5 sets of plans that have been printed and disposed of in the garbage.  Unless your firm uses recycling for waste paper products, those plans usually end up in a landfill someplace.  Over time that can be a large amount of waste!

One big change that has recently begun in the building industry is putting the plans, specifications and work flow of the construction process online for you to see at any time.  A recent building experience I am going through uses this process and it is really nice!  We have one set of the final plans on paper, but all other work has been done electronically and is filed online for me to see easily and quickly.

The nice aspect of using an online work flow system for building is that I can make changes electronically to certain things, see when specific aspects of the construction process are going to begin and follow along with the process from the application of the building permit to the final walkthrough before closing.

When you decide that you want to build a green home or office, don’t overlook the initial phases of the design process.  You can help make your home or office truly eco-friendly by eliminating or reducing waste that are often not even considered in the process.