Housing professionals say green built practices has been becoming more popular in Michigan in the past couple of years. They say building green benefits the environment and saves money for homeowners in the long run.
Chad Kotlarz, founder of Livwell Homes that specializes in sustainably-built houses, said these kinds of construction projects are built while considering how to minimize waste and preserve the environment in the future.
“If you build a high-quality home, it's gonna last for hundreds of years,” he said. “Can you think of the amount of energy that you can save in the span of 100 years or even 150 years? It's really remarkable. So we have to think beyond our own lifetimes. We have to be thinking about the lifetime of the home and how it will affect generations to come.”
What is green building?
Jose Reyna is the executive director of GreenHome Insitute, a nonprofit that offers training for housing professionals who want to build sustainably and provides project consultations for homeowners. He said what distinguishes a sustainably-built home from conventional building is higher energy efficiency that can be powered through solar panels or other sources.
For example, he said, a furnace that burns gas in a conventional home can release toxins into the environment, but solar panels won’t produce those chemicals.
“It provides a healthier environment for somebody who wants to live in a home,” Reyna said. “It provides less of a climate impact or environmental impact. ... It's much better for the climate.”
Don Wilkinson, president of Habitat for Humanity of Michigan, said the organization has been building homes sustainably for nearly ten years. One of the green practices Habitat for Humanity does is building homes with solar panels.
“The solar program that we're working on would not necessarily be net zero homes,” he said. “But many of the homes would generate for most days enough electricity just to run the home.”
Wilkinson said one of his favorite projects that Habitat for Humanity built was 10 net-zero homes in Traverse City, meaning that these homes generate their own energy.
“I think everybody is concerned about the environment and wants to help out the environment,” Wilkinson said. “They also realize that the more efficient their home is, the more disposable income they'll have to spend on other things.”
Elements of green building
Some other green built elements that Habitat for Humanity practices, Wilkinson said, are using wooden foundations instead of concrete, building with recycled materials and insulating walls and ceilings.
In fact, Reyna said these methods could have an economic benefit for homeowners.
“If they increase their insulation in their home, they're going to save money on heating and cooling,” he said. “If they do that long term, they're going to realize significant savings. ... If they reduce water through one other water saving measures, they will save money as well.”
But the most important thing when it comes to green build and maximizing efficiency is orientation, meaning which direction the building is facing, and the design, Kotlarz said.
Keeping the design simple can eliminate waste, and taking advantages of the house’s orientation can open ways to best utilize alternative energy sources like solar and geothermal, he said.
“It benefits the environment in numerous ways,” Kotlarz said. “One of them is just by minimizing waste and construction, so the less waste we generate, the less goes into landfills also, the less energy that's being used if we're using renewable sources of energy.”
To eliminate waste and footprint when people already own a home, Reyna said GreenHome Insitute recommends having native grasses and plants, avoiding fertilizers and pesticides and using environmentally friendly mechanical equipment.
“(Home) is a machine if you will,” Reyna said. “People living in it, it functions, and the more efficient it is long term, the more you're going to save on its operation.”
Looking into future
Reyna said green built technologies might be becoming even more advanced with time.
Kotlarz agreed and said sustainable building will only continue to evolve.
“Solar panels, for example, are getting better and better every year with their efficiencies, batteries are getting better and better, build installation materials and building materials are increasing and we have more available now than we ever have before,” he said.
The future is looking good for sustainable building not only because of technological advancement, but because more and more people are opening their hearts to it, Wilkinson said.
“I think people are going to continue to expand on it,” he said. “I think some of it is fear of materials and that fear is being dispelled as they see their neighbors house going up. And I just I think people do want to do the right thing.”
