A simple drive around your neighborhood may show solar panels practically popping out of roofs like shiny, blue flowers. There’s a reason for that. The green residential construction industry continues to grow rapidly, with predictions that expect the market to grow by 14.7% just from 2021 to 2022 alone.
With green initiatives becoming more important than ever, you might be wondering how you can tap into the green housing market. This guide looks at all the ways that you can build a green home that’s worthy of the market.
What Is a Green Home?
When you think of a green home, you might imagine hobbit huts and second breakfasts. Hold on just a second, though. A green home doesn’t necessarily mean a house that’s covered in grass and tucked into the countryside. As more people make the move to urban areas, the housing market has been increasingly pushing for sustainable energy within metropolitan areas. But, what exactly is a green home? This may seem like a loaded question, and that’s because it is!
To keep it short and sweet, a green home is one that utilizes a combination of energy-conserving and waste-reducing strategies that make a home more sustainable than conventional home construction.
Benefits of Owning a Green House
Whether you’re a homeowner or landlord, you might be wondering if it’s worth going green in the housing market. The answer is a resounding yes, and here’s why:
- It saves you money on energy bills.
- You’ll save on water bills.
- Your home will be more comfortable during seasonal temperature changes.
- You’ll have better indoor air quality.
- Green homes may increase your home’s value.
- Well-insulated and sealed homes are quieter.
- It’s just plain better for the environment.
The 7 Parts of Green Building
You can market your house as sustainable by adopting green practices into the home. For example, if you have energy-efficient appliances in your home, native plant landscaping, and rainwater collection tanks, featuring these sustainable adaptations is a surefire way to stand out as a more environmentally-friendly home.
However, if you want to effectively appeal to sustainable homeowners and property managers, you’ll want to take into account the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) 7 components of green building.
- Energy Efficiency
- Water Efficiency
- Sustainable Building Materials
- Waste Reduction
- Toxics Reduction
- Indoor Air Quality
- Sustainable Development
1. Harness Efficient and Renewable Energy
Energy-saving initiatives—like your home’s insulation, electricity usage, regenerative potential, and even resources sourced from energy-efficient companies—factor in to determine the sustainability of your home. By switching to solar energy, swapping out incandescent lights for LED lighting, upgrading your roof, updating your insulation, and switching to Energy Star-certified appliances.
Energy Star products earn their certification through rigorous testing and research conducted by the EPA, the U.S. Department of Energy, and third-party research affiliates. By choosing energy-efficient appliances, you can decrease the amount of energy your home uses by anywhere from 10% to 50%.
2. Tap into Water-Efficient Sources
You can make simple changes around the home to conserve water—like investing in water-saving technologies, such as water-conserving toilets, sinks, shower heads, washing machines, and dishwashers. You can even change your landscape to drought-resistant, native plants to lower your water bills.
To discover the most water-efficient appliances and products, refer to the EPA’s WaterSense program, which offers all kinds of resources on the best products and water-saving strategies for homeowners.
3. Build with Greener Materials
Most homeowners rely on sustainable builders for new builds or home improvement projects. So, while you might not need to do the work yourself, you’ll still want to ensure that the companies you choose use green materials.
EPA’s Industrial Materials Recycling Program is a great resource for how you or your contractors can choose recycled materials for new constructions. Not only does choosing upcycled materials help keep debris out of landfills, but in some cases your choice to reuse a material can actually improve its quality compared to new material. For instance, upcycled metal roofing can last far longer than new wooden shingles without harming any trees.
Additionally, the EPA’s Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines Program (CPG) contains a list of 61 useful products derived from materials that you can recover from municipal solid waste and reuse for home construction.
4. Decrease Your Waste Production
Whether you’re building new construction, renovating, or taking apart old buildings, what you do with the old material can mean the difference between taking green steps and contributing to the production of needless waste.
To decrease the amount of waste in building or upgrading your home to a greener build, work with demolition and construction companies who practice sustainable management of construction and demolition materials. Sustainable management includes reducing, reusing, and recycling building waste. Always ask contractors what they do with old materials after deconstruction to ensure you’re choosing a green contractor.
5. Reduce Toxic Materials
The materials you choose in both the building and interior design of your home play huge roles in the air quality within your home and beyond. With so many products on the market, it can be challenging to know which ones are made with your safety in mind. Thankfully there are many programs and resources available to help you choose the best eco-friendly building and design materials for your home.
- EPA’s Design for the Environment (DfE) program: Provides tools to assess chemicals and offers substitutions to safer chemistries and best practices
- EPA’s Green Chemistry program: Incentivizes stakeholders through the education, research, and development of safer chemicals and the processes that go into producing safer chemicals
- EPA’s Green Engineering program: Helps inform the chemical industry of the risks of chemical processes and products
- Polyurethane Foam Self-Evaluation Tool: A tool designed by the EPA to help contractors and DIYers safely install spray polyurethane foam (SPF) to ensure appropriate safety measures during SPF installations
- EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS): Provide information on products that contain mercury that could be in the home
- EPA’s lead resource: Serves as a resource hub for lead hazards and how you can protect yourself
- EPA’s Asbestos page: Offers general information on the health effects of asbestos, common asbestos acronyms, and actions you can take if you think your home might have asbestos
- EPA’s Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program (PESP): A partnership that works with pesticide users to lower health and environmental hazards caused by pesticides through prevention strategies
6. Improve Your Indoor Air Quality
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) (or Indoor Environmental Quality or IEQ) is key to having a green home. If your home doesn’t have proper ventilation, safe building materials and furniture, low VOC paint, and more, you could be exposing your family and the environment to poor air quality. This can impact those susceptible to allergies, asthma, and other respiratory issues.
The EPA offers the Indoor Environments Program to provide you with IAQ tools, resources, and programs that will help improve the comfort and safety of the air you breathe.
- IAQ Home Label: For ENERGY STAR-qualified new homes that meet the EPA construction specifications designed to reduce IAQ problems
- Radon Resistant New Construction: Resources on radon-reducing strategies for building new homes
- IAQ Building Education and Assessment Model (I-BEAM): Designed to help professional builders create structures with safe indoor air quality
7. Plan a Sustainable Development
The last component of a green home is planning a sustainable development that supports the growth of the environment around your home. Run-off water, landscaping, and planning a building that poses the least amount of harm to the environment help preserve the habitat of the animals and plants that live there.
If your home is a new build, consider preserving as many trees as possible on your plot, avoiding large builds, and preserving as much open space and critical environmental areas as possible.
Choose Green Contractors
Going green starts with a solid plan—especially if you’re hoping to see a big increase in your home’s market value. While making small changes can improve your home’s overall energy bill, the best way to appeal to green buyers is by investing in substantial renovations or design plans.
Whether you want to go all in and build a new house from the ground up or invest in green renovations, one of the most important steps you can take to smoothly secure the green home of your dreams is to work with certified green production builders. This includes both green design architects and green construction companies. The process for vetting legitimate green companies is universal, so check out these tips on choosing a sustainable contractor:
- Ask around: It’s important to work with a professional contractor that you trust, so ask your green-minded friends for recommendations.
- Research the company: Don’t go with word-of-mouth recommendations alone when choosing a contractor to completely redo your home. Instead, look up the business’s reviews online before signing a contract.
- Check certifications: Look for a LEED, WELL Building Standard, the Living Building Challenge, or Energy Star certification to be sure that you’re working with a professional trained in green building.
- Get testimonials: An unreliable contractor can lead to a green home renovation money pit that is anything but sustainable for your bank account! Always ask for referrals so you can get honest feedback from past projects.
Get Certified with a Green Home Certification Program
To get your home ready for the green market, making sustainable changes to your home might not be enough to see an increase in your home’s value. The best way to showcase all of your hard work is by getting certified by a green building certification program. Here are a few of the best-known green residential building certifications:
- U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Program
- The National Green Building Standard Certification
- Zero Energy Ready Homes program
Residential LEED Certification
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program offers the most recognized rating system worldwide, making it one of the best choices for showcasing your green home. The higher your rating, the more valuable your house will appear on the market. There are four levels for LEED certification, including:
- LEED Certified
- LEED Silver
- LEED Gold
- LEED Platinum
National Green Building Standard Certification
The National Green Building Standard (NGBS) also awards homeowners with four certification levels. This third-party certified program determines the eligibility of your construction by looking at the performance of your building in six different categories, including design and development, resource efficiency, water efficiency, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and the maintenance and operation of your building.
Zero Energy Ready Home Certification
For an official government-run green certification program, the Department of Energy manages its Zero Energy Ready Home program. To qualify for this program, your home needs to meet rigorous criteria. Your home must be at least 40% to 50% more energy efficient than traditional new builds. This program is the most difficult to get certified for because your home must generate renewable energy to meet the requirements. You’ll need to invest in solar panels to achieve zero energy status.