Sustainable, Green, Eco-Green. You’ve heard all of these terms but what does it really mean. We’ve all been told to replace our conventional incandescent light bulbs with CFL’s, compact fluorescent lights, reduce our water use, buy energy efficient appliances, reduce our driving or replace our older gas guzzlers with fuel efficient or hybrid cars. But sustainable goes much farther than that.

The Three R’s
The easiest way to begin is to remember the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. But it also includes improving the indoor air quality, creating a high performance and moisture resistant house, optimizing the sun for heating and cooling, responsible land use and the wise use of natural resources. Even choosing the right contractor can be environmentally friendly. What does this all mean for the average homeowner?

When considering building a new home, an addition to your current home or some type of remodel, it is important to begin with a design that is environmentally friendly. When building a new home it is important to take the area of land to be used into consideration. This includes the orientation of the house and windows to optimize the sun for winter heating and minimize the heat gain in the summer.

Size Does Matter
The size of the house is important. In our current culture, building the biggest home that we can afford tends to be the goal of many homebuilders. But to be eco-friendly you should strive to build a house that has as small of footprint as possible but still meets your current and future needs. When remodeling, rather than adding on to the current house to create the desired living space, reconfiguring the current interior spaces can achieve the same goal. By removing walls or moving the kitchen to another part of the house, we can create move user-friendly spaces and reduce our consumption of natural materials.

By considering the actual size of the house on a lot, you can allow for more open spaces for water resistant plants and ground cover. Having green landscape rather than concrete you also collect water that would otherwise wash across concrete into the storm drains and potentially bring toxic substances along with it, polluting our rivers and streams. Plants and trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the air. Leaving or planting trees that will shade the home during the summer and allow sunlight to come through in winter is a passive way to reduce heating and cooling of your home, saving energy. The added advantage is it also saves the homeowner money.

It’s All about Ventilation
Multiple factors can improve the indoor air quality of a home. By choosing products with low VOC’s or products that do not contain toxic substances you reduce the amount of “Off gassing” that occurs from new products or finishes. Providing for adequate ventilation in both the kitchen and the bathroom.

Cooking in the kitchen creates smoke and moisture that needs to be removed to eliminate not just odors but also potential carbon monoxide gas, grease and mold creating moisture. A proper sized ventilation hood over your cooking area does the job adequately. Having a moisture resistant home improves the indoor air quality.

In the bathroom, a window is good for ventilation but a ventilation fan is better at removing the moisture that can cause mold, adding to reduced indoor air quality. The garage door is important to have good weather stripping on to keep fumes from the car and other chemicals that tend to be stored in the garage from getting into the home.

Our current airtight homes do not allow for adequate ventilation. This does not mean that we do not want to make sure that all cracks are sealed properly for cold or warm air intrusion, what it does mean is that we need to allow for proper ventilation of the home. Have you ever turned on the exhaust fan in the kitchen and had soot come out of your fireplace? This is caused by having a home that does not have any available make up air. This can be achieved by simply opening up the kitchen window slightly to allow air to come in from the outside to make up for the air that is being sucked out by the fan. But if you are considering a remodel or a new furnace/air conditioner, a fan can be installed to provide make up air from the outside. The doors leading to the outside are important to keep sealed with weather stripping or caulking. The exteriors doors can let in drafts that add to the heating and cooling costs of a home.

Irene Fehrenbacher is the president of the Sacramento Valley Chapter of the National Association of The Remodeling Industry.