http://www.care2.com/greenliving/seven-paths-to-a-good-green-home.html
7 Paths to a Good Green Home
Adapted from Good Green Homes, by Jennifer Roberts (Gibbs Smith, Publisher, 2003).
What makes a good home green? What makes a green home good? Principles and practices have evolved–some over hundreds of years and some quite recently–that form the heart of a good green home. Here are seven steps along the path to creating a better home:
The Seven Paths to a Good Green Home
1. Know Where You Are
This concept recognizes that where you live affects both the quality of your life and the quality of the environment. Whether you’re redecorating, remodeling, buying a new house, or building from scratch, understanding the unique characteristics of your particular place can help you create a greener home.
2. Size Matters
Bigger isn’t always better, when it comes to homes.
3. You Have the Power
You can take charge of the energy you use.
4. Build for Today and Tomorrow
A well-built home will have long-term benefits for you and for future generations.
5. Clean Living: Protecting Our Air and Water
You can do a lot at home to protect two of our most precious resources.
6. Build a Better Wall
You can use healthier and safer alternatives to conventional construction methods.
7. Use the Right Stuff
Practice wise use of materials to keep your home healthy and our planet thriving.
If seven principles sound like a lot to tackle, don’t lose heart. Greening your home is a process. The goal is not creating a perfect home, but creating a better home. Small steps and the right attitude can lead to big changes. Learn a little, do a little, laugh a lot, don’t beat yourself up over what you can’t get done, and take the time to plant some flowers along the path to a good home.
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For all of the specifics on building green, as well as how to videos, go to
http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/agreennetwork
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Jennifer, you are correct that these are just statements and don't offer easy access into exactly what they mean. You could use them to do a google search and see if that gave you more specifics. Sometimes that's all that is offered here, catch phrases. It is up to the individual to go farther. You made a good point.
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Well Jennifer, all these things make perfect sense if you are involved in researching green homes. As to the easiest of your questions, taking charge of your energy use, it's simple. Turn your electric using items off. Simple, huh?
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We recently moved into our new Green/Healthy/Energy Efficient home... It is absolutely wonderful. I did years of research on healthy homes, including Annie's books, and the more I researched the greener our home was to become. It was worth all the effort and all the work. We used AAC block (80% air and 20% concrete) for our thermal mass walls. We used tile for major areas of the house and used non-toxic grout. We used bamboo that was processed safely and using waterbased finishes and also some cork processed the same way. All paints used in the house are no VOC paints. Furniture was either eco-furniture or we refurbished our old furniture. We have vista views of the small lake outside our windows and as you walk into the house you get the sense of serenity and peace and welcoming that we hoped for. I will be giving talks and tours of our home so I can hopefully inspire others to try at least some of the things we have done in our home. I also want to alert them to the dangers of pecticides and alternative methods to greener lawns and gardening. It is a mission I'm passionate about and Annie's website has been a longtime favorite of mine and speaks my language perfectly.
You don't have to build a new home to go green, but there are things you can do to improve the healthy aspects you want to do to improve your environment, as you find from this website.
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Sorry, no valuable information here. How do I take charge of my energy use? What do you mean by size matters? How do I protect my air and water? We need specific solutions and things we can do, not just catching phrases.
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