Posts Tagged ‘sustainable’
Wood Floors Are Not Just Oak Anymore
When you mention wood floors to most people, they conjure up an image of a narrow board, red oak floor. But times have changed. Now there are many, many choices of board width and species. And many of these choices come at a modest cost increase. I’ve used white oak, antique chestnut oak, antique heart pine,…
Read MoreGreen Mansions: Building Green – Part Six
Sustainable building materials are more and more available these days. “Sustainable” means the materials are manufactured in environmentally responsible ways. They may be made from recycled materials, such as tile or wallboard.Some are made from agricultural wastes, like wheat straw and rice hulls. Still others are made from rapidly renewable materials, such as bamboo or…
Read More“Green” Mansions: Building Green – Part Four
When it comes to “building green,” There are other energy-saving measures that can occur behind the scenes. Proper insulation, including draft blocking to prevent convective loops of cold or warm air within walls and ceilings will reduce heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer. I’ve found that in southern climates insulation and building tightness…
Read MoreSummertime Energy Tips
Are your windows locked? We don’t tend to think of air leakage in the summer like we do in the wintertime. When it’s cold, we can feel the cold drafts wafting through the house. But in the summer, warm drafts are not as easily felt. But the more hot air that seeps into your house,…
Read MoreEnergy Efficient Air Conditioners
These days, it seems like everything anyone sells is energy efficient, green, or sustainable in some way. Those are the words plastered on the products we buy because without those claims, a product is virtually unsaleable in this climate (pardon the pun) of environmental zeal. This is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say, but…
Read More“Green” Mansions: Building Green – Part One
You don’t have to compromise aesthetics to build an environmentally responsible house. Recently, substantial increases in energy costs and a renewed awareness of our environmental responsibility have been quickly changing the way we think about our way of living and the methods and materials we use for construction. More and more, people are interested in…
Read MoreOne Size House Does NOT Fit All
Would you buy a suit that was a couple of sizes too small? Would you pick your new shoes from a rack of “standard” sizes and colors, even if none of them actually fit or the colors weren’t right? Of course not. So why is it that we are willing to pick out a house…
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