Posted by Nancy Sabatelli on Feb.25, 2010

©iStockphoto.com - AndreasWeber

Buying a home is probably one of the biggest decisions and purchases you’ll ever make. A lot of work is involved, from picking your target location to figuring out what size and style home you want – and of course, determining what you can afford! But, buying a home also has an impact on the planet. Wonder how to “green up” the home buying process and make it better for the environment? The following tips can help in your search for the perfect home.

Popular Green Features in Homes

A “green” home is environmentally-friendly, designed to minimize waste and use less energy, thereby being better for the planet. Green homes typically have energy-efficient appliances and windows, good insulation and utilize environmentally-friendly materials, notes Nichole L. Reber for the Web site, HomeFinder.com (1):

Energy-efficient appliances use less energy than standard appliances, requiring less electricity and resulting in lower utility bills. Windows and other items throughout a home can also come with an “energy-efficient” certification. Plumbing fixtures have “low-flow” options that use less water than standard fixtures.

If you can’t afford floor-to-ceiling energy-efficient goods in your new home, try to at least get them in your kitchen and bathroom. You’ll get the best energy savings as well as best value for your money in these rooms, according to Sami Grover on PlanetGreen.com (2).“A home built or remodeled to green standards, such as an ENERGY STAR or LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental design) certified home can cut energy use by 15 to 30 percent,” according to the Web site, GreenYour.com (3). Green features in these rooms will also boost the re-sale value of the home, should you decide to sell it down the road (2).

Good insulation – the higher the “R” factor, the better – keeps out extreme temperatures and moisture, requiring less energy to heat or cool your home (1).

Solar panels and machines capture the sun’s rays and retain heat, so your home will stay warmer and you’ll have lower heating bills (2).

Lots of large, double-hung, well-insulated windows keep out extreme heat or cold, so you’ll save on heating and cooling costs. And, because having lots of windows lets in lots of natural light, you won’t need to turn on as many lights, saving more money and energy (1).

House Hunting: Keeping it Green

When you’re ready to start your search for the perfect place, keep these tips in mind. They can make the home buying process easier (and greener):

Browse homes online or in the newspaper. Driving around aimlessly trying to find homes is a waste of time, money and effort. Plus, it wastes gasoline and pollutes the air (1). Instead, try to find homes listed in your newspaper, or go online and search for home listings. Some homes listed online even have photos of the outside and inside, where you can see the home’s rooms and take a virtual tour. You can also see the area surrounding a home online – what other homes look like, how the roads are laid out and what businesses are nearby. Tara-Nicholle Nelson for HGTV suggests maps.google.com or FrontDoor.com (4).

Hire a green realtor. Some realtors and real estate agents specialize in buying and selling green, eco-friendly, energy-efficient homes. A green realtor can help you find a home with the exact green features you’d like (2, 3).

Buy used. Buying an existing home rather than building a new one from scratch is much better for the environment. Think of it as recycling or reusing someone else’s old home. Lots of wood and other materials are required to build a new home from scratch. Potentially-hazardous chemicals are also involved. And don’t forget about the waste it creates: building a new home “generates approximately 4.38 pounds of trash per square foot that goes directly to the landfill,” notes GreenYour.com (3).

Consider location. We’ve all heard the real estate mantra, “location, location, location!” When looking for a home, think about how close it’s located to places you often go, (like your place of work, friends’ and family’s homes, stores, restaurants, etc). How far are these places from your new home? Will you need to drive? How much gasoline will that burn, how much money will that cost and how much time will it waste? You don’t want to spend all of your time (or money for gas) driving if your home isn’t close to the places you need. Can you find a closer home so you can walk or ride a bike instead of driving? And will your home be close to accessible public transportation (1, 2, 3, 4)? Grover suggests visiting the Web site Walk Score, which lets you enter a home’s address, then tells you about different nearby businesses and stores to which you can easily walk

Don’t pick a huge home. Sure, you don’t want to wind up like the proverbial old woman who lived in a shoe. But, on the other hand, do you really need a huge mansion or castle? The bigger the home, the more energy it uses for lighting, heating, cooling, etc. – and the higher your utility bills will be (1, 2, 3, 4)! “A study published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology found that a small home with moderate energy efficiency uses substantially less energy for heating and cooling than a large house built to very high energy-performance standards,” claims GreenYour.com (3).

Town houses, condos and multi-family houses tend to use less energy and resources than single-family homes, so consider one of these dwelling options (3). To compensate for the smaller size, look for an open floor plan with combined rooms, (like a great room kitchen/living area). As an added bonus, open floor plans are “typically less expensive to heat, cool and maintain” than more traditional floor plans with closed-off separate rooms, writes Nichole L. Reber for the Web site, Homefinder.com (1). Smaller homes also require fewer materials and less energy to build or construct, compared to larger homes.

Do paperwork electronically. Loan applications, mortgage agreements, forms, permits – does the mountain of paperwork ever end?! The average real estate sale results in approximately 400 pages of paperwork, claims Nelson (4). Fortunately, many real estate companies are now completing these documents electronically. You can download the forms, sign them electronically and e-mail them back to the bank, realtor, etc. In the coming years, the National and State Associations of Realtors will be increasingly using this electronic format for paperwork to reduce paper waste and save trees (4).

Sources:

1. Reber, Nichole L. Green Qualities to Look for in a Home. (2010). HomeFinder. Retrieved February 9, 2010 from http://www.homefinder.com/content/Buying-Guide:Green_Qualities_to_Look_for_in_a_Home

2. Grover, Sami. How to Go Green: Home Buying. (n.d.). Planet Green. Retrieved February 10, 2010 from http://planetgreen.discovery.com/go-green/home-buying/home-buying-basics.html

3. Green Your Home Buying. (n.d.). GreenYour. Retrieved February 15, 2010 from http://www.greenyour.com/lifestyle/finance-politics/home-buying

4. Nelson, Tara-Nicholle. Leaner, Greener Homebuying. (December 1, 2008). HGTV FrontDoor. Retrieved February 8, 2010 from http://www.frontdoor.com/Buy/Leaner-Greener-Homebuying/2698

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