Every home can be tuned for
green. Technology, home
construction and appliances make
it practical for everyone to give their
homes green features. Green homes
are high performance homes and
are more healthy, comfortable,
and efficient. This site will give you
a mental framework to accelerate
your understanding of what makes
a green home. It will also show you how
to evaluate what makes sense for
YOUR home and get you started
on making changes.
Adding renewable energy generation to your
home will have a greater impact if you first
make your home energy-efficient. You need a
plan to get started and a great first step is a
home energy audit. You can do your own
or you can hire a professional. Either way
you will learn about the specific energy
characteristics of your home and you will be
able to make a prioritized list of changes you
want to make. My mid-west sensibilities lead
me to fix construction errors and then
look at operational savings that will give me a
return on my investment. You can organize
your projects to reflect your personal
values. Whether you are a tree-hugging
earth steward or a hard-nosed accountant
does not matter, the important thing is to
make a good start.
Learn how to conduct a home energy audit
and see what a professional home energy
audit involves.
Making your home green is not a new
concept. Thousands of homes in the United
States are already on the journey and you
can find good examples of homes in every
stage along the way. We are all in this
together and learning from the experiences
others will get us all where we want to be.
Trail blazers can teach us what can be done
and how to do it. An important aspect of
greening your home is how to pay for it.
In the United States governments at all
levels are encouraging people to make their
homes energy efficient by picking up part of
the tab. In some cases they are picking up a
large part of the tab. Between grants (free
money), tax rebates (more free money),
energy credits (new money) and
subsidized financing (cheap money) you
may be able to afford more than you think,
sooner than you think.
When it comes time to make your plans a
reality you must strike a balance between
cost and personal involvement. There is no
doubt that you can save money by doing the
work yourself.
I will confess to a lack of handy-man skills
that make the decision an easy one for me.
Nobody in my family will even talk about my
last plumbing project, and decorating the
Christmas tree is about as electrical as I
should get. I do have friends and family who
can pull off any home project. The trouble is
that many projects, especially ones that
add renewable energy generation involve
hauling heavy equipment to dangerous
heights and working with high voltage
devices that are not familiar to most
amateurs. Almost everyone will need help
and picking a good green home builder
is very important.
There is a great deal of information available regarding green homes, solar renewable energy homes, zero energy homes, solar power homes, wind power homes, leed building/construction, and sustainable construction. The difficulty researching high performance construction, high performance home design, passive solar design, home automation, smart grid, and mesh networking led to the creation of this site to make it easier to build a green home. My focus has been on Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Michigan when geography matters. Especially Northeast Ohio, Central Ohio, Southern Ohio, Cleveland, Mentor, Lake County, Cuyahoga County, Geauga County, Akron, Toledo, Youngstown, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati.