By Marjie O'Connor
For 10 years, our sister television network, HGTV, has wowed its audiences with the Dream Home — a different luxury home every year in locations as varied as the Georgia Low Country and a Rocky Mountains ski mecca. For 2008, HGTV is building a new kind of showcase: a green home that will feature many of the Best Practices that play such a starring role on HGTVPro.com.
Despite all the buzz about green building — on our site and off — there is still some confusion about exactly how to define green building, let alone the HGTV Green Home. This package of videos and articles will help on both counts.
The HGTV Green Home is simply an ordinary house to the casual observer, but it is being built with great attention to the key elements of green building, as defined by the U.S. Green Building Council:
- Sustainable site planning
- Safeguarding water and water efficiency
- Energy efficiency
- Conservation of materials and resources
- Indoor environmental quality
While the HGTV Green Home does not claim to incorporate every possible aspect of green building, it is certainly an excellent example of how a house can be green and beautiful. No one passing by it would know that the house has so many green features — except for the sign outside proclaiming its planned LEED certification.
Take a look at just some of the technologies that will be part of the HGTV Green Home:
And that's just scratching the surface. In fact, the entire development surrounding the HGTV Green Home has been designed with the environment in mind. The architect for the house is LEED-certified, and the builder specializes in green building.
More people are looking for green-built homes every day, and — as the HGTV Green Home demonstrates — providing the houses they want is not just wishful thinking. Green building is smart, affordable, appealing — and the future of residential construction.
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