What is a Green Home

A Green or sustainable home is a structure that is designed, built, renovated, operated, or reused in an ecological and resource-efficient manner. Green homes are designed to meet certain objectives such as using energy, water, and other resources more efficiently; and reducing the overall impact on the environment. On the simplest level, it's the structure itself: a building incorporating "green" technologies and design elements, making it energy efficient, comfortable, and fitting with the environment. An ideal green building is simultaneously responsive both to its occupants and to the environment; it is aware of its inside and its outside, and how they relate and connect.

What is a Healthy Home

A Healthy home is built to address the overall indoor environmental quality and any special health needs of its occupants.  In building such a home, we aim to reduce incidence of respiratory disease, allergic reactions, asthma, and other chemically induced adverse symptoms.  In designing a Healthy Home we research, locate, specify, and install construction materials and finishes that have zero or low off-gasing emissions, and thereby improve interior air quality throughout the life of the building. 

Standard construction industry building materials and cleaning supplies produce, through off-gassing, toxic chemicals such as volatile organic compounds (VOC) and formaldehyde.  These chemicals contaminate interior air and are detrimental to the health of the people living therein.

Examples of items that are essential to a Healthy Home are; high-efficiency, in-duct filtration system, heating and cooling systems that ensure adequate ventilation and proper filtration, and clean water filtration. These produce a dramatic positive effect on indoor air quality.  

An area of particular interest is preventing mold contamination in living spaces.  This is addressed through the selection of mold-resistant materials, engineering effective drainage around the home, and designing adequate ventilation, especially in bathrooms, and establishing other building systems to control humidity.

Combining Green and Healthy Homes

Construction of a Green Home may cost more up front, but saves over the life of the building through lower operating costs.  Healthy Homes reduce medical costs and improve overall quality of life for occupants.  RJD Construction takes these facts into account when applying a life cycle cost analysis for each project.  Such analysis helps determine appropriate up-front costs.  This analytical method calculates costs over the useful life of the home.

Total cost-savings can only be fully realized when they are incorporated at the beginning, during a project's conceptual design phase.  Proper weighting of relevant factors require the assistance of an integrated team of professionals.  This integrated systems approach ensures that the home is designed and built efficiently as one system rather than as a collection of stand-alone systems.

Some attributes and benefits, such as improved health, comfort, reducing pollution, and reduced landfill waste are not easily monetized.  Consequently, they cannot be objectively budgeted during cost analysis. For this reason, we recommend setting aside a predetermined portion of the building budget to cover differential costs associated with less tangible Healthy and Green building benefits or to fund research into advanced building options.

Even with a tight budget, many Healthy and Green home measures can be incorporated and will yield enormous life cycle savings.