Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series.  The first is below.

Creating a high performance home has many aspects to consider, but this equates to many benefits.

Heating and Cooling More Efficiently
When remodeling, replace old single pane windows with dual pane, low-e glass windows. Reduce the size of windows on the south and west sides of the home to minimize heat gain. Add insulation in the attic; if the attic is inaccessible, this can be achieved when a new roof is put on.

If the exterior is being remodeled, consider making the roof overhangs on the East, South and West sides of the home larger to shade the windows in the summer. Because the sun is lower in the sky in winter, this still allows for the winter sun to naturally warm the same areas that were cooled during the summer.

When considering a new roof, choose materials that are durable, come from recycled products or have recycled content and products that have a longer warranty period. By choosing materials that are more durable or have a longer warranty period, you reduce that amount of raw materials needed to make the roofing materials in a set amount of time. If you choose 25-year shingles rather than 50-year shingles because the 50-year shingle cost 25 percent more, in 25 years you will be producing waste from your current shingles and also using raw materials to produce the new shingles. By choosing the 50-year shingles, you cut your waste and use in half. Many manufacturers currently recycle their own waste.

If the siding on the exterior of a home needs to be replaced, insulation can be added to the exterior walls if none is present, and a house wrap can be added prior to the siding replacement to increase the moisture resistance of the home. Insulating the exterior walls saves both energy and money by eliminating heat loss in winter and heat gain in the summer.

Going Green with Materials
I feel that the wise use of natural resources is one of the most important aspects of sustainable. This includes choosing products with a high level of renewability, such as bamboo for flooring and cabinets or cork for flooring.

Rapidly renewable products are defined as having a natural replacement cycle of less than 10 years. Rather than cutting down old growth or rain forests for our building products, rapidly renewable products are less of a burden on our environment. Bamboo has a growth cycle of three years and cork has a 7-year growth cycle. An added advantage to cork flooring is that it is also hypoallergenic.

Poplar is another rapidly renewable product used in OSB sheet goods that are commonly used on the exterior and roofs of homes.

Use products that have a low level of embodied energy – that is the energy that is required to extract the raw materials – the energy it takes to process and transport the products and the environmental impact of extracting the materials. Materials that do not include toxic substances, such as aurea formaldehyde that give off gas for years, are good choices for both the environment and indoor air quality.

Products made with salvaged, recycled or agricultural waste content are environmentally friendly. When old buildings or homes are torn down, a method called deconstruction can be used to save materials that can be used in either other areas of the project or to be salvaged and sold to others.

In areas that have trees that have been under water for many years, the trees are being brought up to the surface and being milled into lumber. Agricultural waste products such as wheatgrass stalks, sunflower seed husks and straw, that once were burned adding to greenhouse gases, are now being used to make durable panel products used in cabinetry and furniture production.

Durability of a product can mean many more years of use, reducing our waste in landfills and our consumption of raw materials as in the example of the shingles above. When choosing appliances, it is best to chose appliances that are energy efficient, save water or made of good quality to last longer. Products that have low maintenance requirements are also energy efficient.

Better quality appliances need less maintenance and a by-product is not requiring a repairperson to drive to your house to perform the maintenance, saving fuel and reducing CO2 emissions.

Finding the Right Contractor
Choosing a contractor that shares your views on sustainability is paramount to any project. It is important that during a remodeling project the contractor uses environmentally friendly techniques and procedures. Sealing off the area of work from the rest of the house to maintain air quality in the occupied areas of the house is the first of many procedures.

Using as many methods of deconstruction as possible, allow for as much of the materials to be salvaged or reused. Rather than disposing of working appliances, find local agencies or charities that can reuse or resell them. Separating recyclable materials prior to taking debris to a disposal site is a simple, yet effective, procedure.

At many county disposal sites, they now require that certain recyclable materials be separated and put into different locations at the disposal site. But not all disposal sites require separation of recyclable materials. It is important that your contractor use a site that requires separation of recyclables.

Economic Environmentalism
Sustainable, Green, Environmentally Friendly, no matter how you term it, everything from the use of a few energy efficient products to an entirely Green project has an impact on the earth.

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.

PART ONE
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.