Green Homes 101

For ten years, BPC Green Builders has been a leader in the use of residential building science and life cycle analysis to build and renovate green homes in the Connecticut market. We use our technical expertise and home building experience to craft homes that exceed conventional standards for health, comfort, durability, energy efficiency, and environmental responsibility.

Building science

Thanks to new research, there are numerous effective strategies for improving home performance without sacrificing aesthetic goals or increasing building costs substantially. The materials and assemblies in a high performance green home work synergistically to achieve a wide range of seemingly contradictory performance goals. For example, a central tenet of this strategy is expressed in the axiom, ‘Build tight and ventilate right’; in other words, build a well insulated, air-tight exterior shell and provide mechanical ventilation for indoor air quality. Simple building strategies like this make a huge difference in the performance of a home. It is the expert and experienced use of these strategies that sets BPC apart from the competition.

Team approach

Most often, a green home is the result of the focused effort of a team of building professionals working to achieve a common goal. To quote Mary McLeod of the renowned Austin Energy Green Building Program: “We really are trying to get people to work with a team process from the beginning. The builder really has to be brought in right away. Very typically the mechanical contractor has nothing to do with the design, so it’s compromised from the start. We consider this to be the whole basis of green building – getting all the experts together in the beginning to get the most effective result."

Other considerations

Other ways to make a home more environmentally responsible include:

• Sizing the home appropriately – smaller homes use less energy and fewer resources.
• Locating the home near services, work, and school – both homeowner and community benefit by keeping cars off the road.
• Locating a home on the property in a position to take advantage of natural features - sunlight to reduce the need for lights, trees for shading to reduce cooling needs, and topography/trees to block wind and reduce heating needs.
• Renovating an existing home instead of building new – remodeling often requires less energy and material than building new.
• Using materials with low embodied energy – less energy is required to manufacture and transport materials that come from local sources, or are reclaimed or recycled.
• Incorporating alternative energy sources – there are numerous clean energy options, such as passive solar, solar electric, solar hot water systems, wind turbines, and geothermal heating and cooling to consider.
• Using less fresh water to protect our aquifers and reservoirs – strategies include low-flow fixtures, grey water recycling, rain water harvesting, and composting toilets.