It’s never too late to make your home a “green” home. No matter how old or new your house is, there are many great ways to use less energy and fewer natural resources that allow you to live more environmentally responsible.
Why turn your home into a “green” home? Because doing so will:
- It adds value to your house
- It help reduce energy use and costs
- Remodeling can make less of an impact on the environment
Green remodeling is simply the design and construction of projects that reduce environmental impacts, such as energy, water, and materials consumption; generation of waste; and harmful emissions, both indoors and out.
The principles that govern green residential remodeling are shared with all other design and construction projects; however some aspects are unique to green remodeling, especially if you plan to use a professional remodeler:
• Range of projects. Residential green remodeling can cover everything from painting a room to refitting a kitchen to gutting a whole house down to the frame and then rebuilding it.
• Existing conditions. In residential remodeling there are existing conditions ranging from room configuration to hazards such as mold, lead, and asbestos that have to be considered. Whereas in new home construction you generally just have to consider the site.
• Custom work. Just about every residential remodeling project is custom, with very little opportunity for the sorts of economies of scale that occur in new building construction.
• Client relationship. In almost all remodeling jobs the home owner is the client. This closer relationship between the homeowners and remodeler requires skills and perspectives not generally required for new construction projects.
• Occupants. Remodeling professionals must plan and often conduct their work based on the health, safety and schedules of the client. Even when work requires that the home be vacated, the timing and duration of such a period must be very carefully orchestrated.
• Sequenced or staged projects. Many residential remodeling projects are sequenced projects (“We want to do the bathroom first and then the kitchen.”) This can make for challenging orders of operation, innovation and improvisation by remodeling professionals.
• Integration of systems. Almost all types of green building construction require some systems integration, and residential remodeling adds a new challenge to this integration: remodeling professionals must integrate old or existing systems with the new.
Contractor Support is very willing to work with us to make sure that we ended up with what we wanted. I can’t even count how many times we changed our minds about one particular part of the project and Dave (The contractor we hired through the service) not only helped us figure out what we wanted, but he was very good about making sure that the changes we wanted got done properly. contractorsupportonline