Green Thoughts.......

Jen and I went to a local building supply store that focuses on green products over the weekend to get a feel for some of the things we were hoping to incorporate in our home design. Philosophically, we are not looking to make a statement about our "eco-friendliness" but to make sure we focus on the things that we find important for our family's health and pocketbook. The two main things we find important: indoor air quality, and energy efficiency. Looking at these things from a surface level, it seems that we should be able to accomplish these tasks with a minimum amount of increased cost. So, we decided we would get a more hands on feel and see what things actually looked like in person, instead of on the web as we have been doing up to now.

As we were looking around at the EVO free paint, the urethane free cabinetry, and the spray-in insulation, it got me thinking about what exactly we were going to be able to do to make our home as efficient as possible without spending massive amounts of money to be green. So the question that really comes to mind is: even if the green products are of a commensurate cost to the normal construction materials, will they install the same way, and can a general contractor install it with the same easy they would the normal construction product? There is SO much more to making a green home then just choosing the right products, and thats becoming increasingly clear to me.

I fully expected the process of building a home to be a learning process, and to this point it has been a challenge, but nothing that we have not been through with the remodeling we have done over the years. This is going to be much more of a challenge on both our part, and the part of any builder that we contract for the construction. We are going to have to be cognizant of the potential for our bids to increase as a result of a GC not being familiar with the installation of a certain type of product. Qualifying that is going to be one of the more important cost factors to the bid process, and eventually the building of our home.

More to come.....next up LEED certification, and the green "process"...