Author: Mary Fifita

So, thinking about where you are going to live should include consideration of its future affordability. Do not wait until gas prices are $6.00-$7.00 per gallon, or there are not enough hours in the day to fight traffic to shuttle your active family around in gridlocked traffic, and you see your investment value deteriorating due to these and other changing market conditions. You will be glad to have done your homework and made a better informed decision for your home’s location. Hmm, still can’t decide? Before we go any further in choosing your location, we recommend that you take a…

Green building uses strategies that embrace patterns in nature that create opportunities for cost savings. By incorporating passive strategies to utilize sun paths, capture prevailing breezes and water runoff, we can reduce dependency on mechanical systems. This allows us to design a comfortable home and only use those systems to augment nature as needed. To make the best of what nature has given us, we must analyze the microclimate of our location. How you build depends on where you are building; local climate dictates your best building practices. Climate is not just about region, though – it can be very…

We all know that toxic substances have been introduced to the natural environment through pollution and haphazard waste disposal practices, contaminating our air, water resources and soils. Buildings also contribute to the quality of our health and our environment in a number of ways. Many of you have already become familiar with allergy problems associated with indoor air quality, including pollutants, excess moisture and stale air. But few of us think about the connection between the increasing toxicity of these environments and our long- term health. Toxins The Industrial Revolution enabled mass production and exponentially increased our ability to produce…

Homes built today may include a number of mechanical systems, and for each function that those systems serve, a number of choices in components are available. The primary systems used in most homes are heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) and water heating. Some homes employ onsite sewage treatment (septic) systems. Green homes may include rainwater and graywater systems. More high-performance homes are embracing new technologies in electrical energy management, including smart lighting and appliances, as well as onsite renewable energy production systems. Certainly advances in technologies over the last few years have resulted in far too many brands, models and…

Our choices of building products and how well we use them contribute greatly to achieving our goals of energy, water and resource efficiency, and healthier, more durable and affordable homes. But sometimes those choices also have impacts on a much larger scale. In this article, we will look at building materials in terms of “shades of green,” recognizing how well they contribute to a green home, but also measuring their benefits in terms of the larger picture of the world we live in and how our purchasing decisions affect it. Global Citizens We live in a global economy; many of…

For most people, selection of a building site is usually based on proximity to the area where they want to live, their budget and/or how much flexibility they have in building design. The location that you choose should match your needs for access to community amenities, work, good schools for your children, and/or your lifestyle goals. Too many times people make poorly thought-out decisions, such as building large, luxurious homes on acreage outside of town only to abandon them within a couple of years, realizing that they hate the commute to work every day. Just as often, people buy undeveloped…