INFINITI Real Estate & Design team is your Seattle Green Home broker. Our experts have a natural passion for helping you find or build a green home. That means our agents help Seattle and Washington state homebuyers locate homes built or remodeled with environmentally friendly techniques and materials. Green or Eco-building is all about supporting health and well-being both for occupants and for the planet.
Green homes traditionally employ more intentional water and energy conservation methods, incorporate a higher level of recycled building material content, and function very efficiently on renewable energy systems. All this contributes to a healthier indoor air quality for the household and a lower carbon footprint for the planet.
Whether you are considering the purchase of an existing home with green features, a green home remodel or a custom built green home, contact us or call INFINITI RED today: 206.363.3550.
What is a Green Home?
A green home is a house that is built or remodeled with environmentally friendly building techniques and materials to support the health and well-being of both the occupants of the home and sustainability of the planet. Green homes traditionally have a healthier indoor quality, a greater amount of energy and water conservation, a higher level of recycled content in the materials, and renewable energy systems.
There are five main factors that go into making a green home including:
Site Selection & Protection – Choosing to build or remodel a home green on a site close to transportation and other amenities helps reduce sprawl and creates efficiency. Protecting sensitive areas such as slopes and wetlands as well as natural habitat is an important element of any green home.
Energy Efficiency & Systems – Starting with the efficiency of the building envelope and how well it seals in heat using insulation and air gap sealing, a green home seeks to reduce energy use, conserve energy, and use renewable energy such as solar, geothermal and wind energy for heating and cooling.
Water Systems – In addition to conserving water through the use of low-flow water fixtures and water saving appliances, collecting rainwater, and managing stormwater on-site to help imitate natural hydrology helps to create a green home.
Health & Indoor Air Quality – The time we spend indoors far outways the time we spend outdoors, making indoor air quality a critical factor in creating a healthy home. You can improve indoor air quality by using hard surface floors vs carpet, taking off shoes when entering the house, having a HEPA air filter, and reducing the amount of furniture and other products that could off-gas chemicals into your home from woods or fabrics.
Materials & Resources – Building accounts for a tremendous amount of resource extraction and waste. Green homes often minimize and recycle construction waste, as well as use recycled content or salvaged materials when possible. Using wood products certified FSC, and other green certified products ensure that sustainable practices were used in harvesting and producing materials.
For additional information, see the following articles:
http://www.greenhomeguide.com/know-how/article/green-homes-101