Castalia Homes: LEED certificated green homes

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system is a rating green building certification system.  This system is provided by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC;) a Washington-based non-profit organization that stands for prosperous and sustainable future for the nation trough cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings.

The LEED program covers over 4.5 billion square feet of construction space in the United States and other 91 countries.  The current number of participating projects reaches 35,000.

LEED for homes is the part of program (and the nationally accepted benchmark) for the design and construction of high-quality green homes. LEED certification, developed in 2000, offers tree-stage rating system that measures a homes performance on eight categories: site selection, water efficiency, materials, & resources, energy & atmosphere, indoor environmental quality, location & linkages, awareness & education, and innovation.

Each LEED-certified home passes inspections and testing individually to ensure its high performance.  After all inspections are made it gets one of these tree rated stages: silver, gold or platinum.

Castalia Homes is a green building company that uses USGBC LEED certification for the every home they build.  Castalia Homes just certified another LEED for homes house and now has the most certified green, highest performing homes in the State of Indiana!!!

Castalia homes: the main principles of green design

Green, or sustainable design is an important part of the green building process.  To create a green design for your home you should follow its principles.  While there’s a variety of a practical applications, the principles of green design are mostly similar to green building fundamentals.

First, when choosing an interior, use low-impact materials.  The perfect materials for green design are non-toxic, sustainably produced or recycled.  Local or bio-regional materials managed from renewable sources are usually preferred.

The next important feature is quality and durability.  Always choose longer-lasting, and better-functioning products that need replaced less frequently.

Sustainable design is also associated with a design for reuse and recycling.  Some parts of the interior can be made from products that are reused and will have their “afterlife.”

Second, sustainable design should support the energy efficiency of your home.  The general plan of the interior should include manufacturing processes which require less energy.

Waste prevention plays a great role in green building, so it should also be continued in green design.

In conclusion, based on the main principles of green building, green design should be natural, efficient, durable, and of a high quality.  If you turn on your imagination and use these principles as a guide, your home will not just be “green,” but it will look amazing as well!

Green Design: Common Intentions and Applications

Design always plays a great role in building because it effects how convenient and spectacular your home will be.  When building green, design is not less important.  In green building there are some principles that should be extended in design too.  As a result a new kind of design appeared, green design that is also called sustainable design or ecological design.

The main intention of sustainable design, as it was said exactly in “The Philosophy of Sustainable Design” by J. F. McLennan, is to to "eliminate negative environmental impact completely through skillful, sensitive design."  The principles to use no non-renewable resources, to impact the environment minimally, and relate people with natural environment are used during design, the same as during green building.

All the details of ecological design provide not just things for life but also a special behavior and relations between user and object or service.  This relationship should be long-term, respectful and mindful.

Sustainable design may be considered a philosophy that can range from microcosm (small things for everyday use) to macrocosm (buildings, cities, etc.)  This philosophy can be applied in the fields of architecture, interior design and landscape design.

A main factor in ecological design is reducing.  By choosing green building technologies, and green design for our homes we reduce the impact of building and of our everyday home life on the natural environment.

Going green by using LEDs

An integral part of green building is energy efficiency in your home.  When thinking about building a green home you need to decide what kind of lighting will be installed.

Usual incandescent lamps have become outdated.  Due to the trends of the last decade, a lot of people began to use compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs,) which are more efficient than incandescent bulbs. 

Today, there is an additional alternative technology that really works, light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs.  The difference between LEDs and other forms of lighting is mostly made by a Solid State Lighting (SSL) it uses diodes as a source of illumination instead of gas or electrical filaments.  Because of this fact they stay cold, live longer and break less easily.  LED lighting can also be easily focused on a specific target.

LEDs produce more light per watt – nearly 48-70 lumen's per watt, while CFLs provide nearly 60, and incandescent – just 13!  Their life time is from 40,000 to 50,000 hours, for CFLs it’s – 10,000 hours, and incandescents only 750 hours!

The reduction of energy use leads to a lower cost of energy bills.  LED bulbs cost a bit more than CFLs but even considering the prices they will undoubtedly save not just energy, but your money too.

Another advantage of LEDs is their safety.  These bulbs do not contain mercury as CFLs bulbs.  So there are no risks of toxic exposure and no problems with their utilization.  LED lights do not emit significant UV or IR radiation.

You can make an impact on global environmental protection by using LED bulbs.  If 25 percent of the light bulbs in the US were converted to LED bulbs it could save $115 billion in utility costs by 2025, alleviating the need to build 133 new coal-burning power stations and cutting carbon emissions by 258 million metric tons.  This means that if every household or business in the U.S. replaced just one or two standard incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs, the electricity saved would be more than the output of the country’s largest nuclear power plant.

So think about these statements and go green using a light-emitting diode lighting!

Estimating your home electronic devices energy usage

The energy efficiency of your home is actually something that needs a lot of attention. Of course, installing different energy efficient devices will help to achieve the reduction of energy bills, but it is not the only thing that matters. If you are really interested and determined to conserve energy in your home you should also keep an eye on the amount of energy used. To be informed on this topic you should be informed about your many electronic devices. Determining approximately how much electricity is actually used is really easy.

You can use this formula to estimate an appliance's energy use:

(Wattage × Hours Used Per Day) ÷ 1000 = Daily Kilowatt-hour (kWh) consumption

1 kilowatt (kW) = 1,000 Watts

Usually on each electronic device the amount of watts it uses is printed on itself or on a nameplate, stamped on the back or bottom. You can also figure it by multiplying the drawn current (amperes) by the voltage. Pay attention that the wattage shown on the device is a maximum, so it actually used less watts unless you have them turned up to maximum power. 

The greatest amount of electricity is typically used by the water heater ( f. e. 40 gallon water heater uses nearly 4500-5500 Watts,) that’s why installing solar water heaters is becoming more and more popular and efficient. This topic was discussed on our blog earlier. 

When calculating the amount of energy used by your electronic devices do not forget to factor in time of use. Many appliances continue to draw a small amount of power when they are switched off, such as VCRs, televisions, stereos, computers, and kitchen appliances. 

After providing this research you’ll know the usage of which appliances you should reduce, and maybe it is possible to switch them to more energy efficient products.

End the Fight with Inflating Energy Bills in Several Steps

According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA,) savings achieved by using low-energy appliances are counter-acted by the increasing usage of electronic devices.  The EIA says that energy exhaustion will increase 40% by 2035.  (Energy rates have risen up to 20% since 2005.)

Nowadays there are plenty of strategies on how to manage the rising energy costs.  Here are some of them shown in steps that will help to reduce high energy bills, not just now, but for later years too.

Step 1: Install Solar Panels

Installing a residential photovoltaic (PV) system is a good start to your long-term protection program against rising energy costs.  Thanks to current solar rebate and incentive programs provided at the federal, state and local levels you can save 30 to 60 % or more of the installation costs.

Step 2: Cut Hot Water Costs

Nearly 11% of energy costs are for hot water.  It is possible to cut hot water costs in a half by installing a solar hot water system.  Using the sun’s free energy, it heats the water in an insulated tank.  Working even on cloudy days it reduces energy usage by giving the water heater partially heated water.

Step 3: Rethink Heating Systems

Commonly, forced-air heaters are used to heat homes in the U.S. The air that blows out of the registers, even if it is really hot, quickly sheds that heat as it moves around the house, making this way of heating highly uneven.  The best alternative is radiant heating systems, which consist of either electric wires or hot-water tubes installed under flooring.  These systems can be up to 30% more efficient than forced-air systems.

Step 4: Green Up Your Electronics

Due to the EIA reports 50% of Americans own three or more TV sets and around 44% own more than three rechargeable devices.  Plug-in (re)chargers can add to electrical costs.  It is more efficient to use solar electronic (re)chargers.  They are inexpensive and can easily recharge not only batteries, your MP3 player, cell phone or mobile device as well.

Implementation of this simple plan will give you great results and will significantly reduce your energy costs. 

Green building: energy efficient solar hot water systems

During the green building process there are three main ideas to follow.  Your home should be healthy, the building process should preserve the environment, and of course it should be energy efficient.

The main idea behind solar hot water systems is that they use a free, abundant natural resource; the sun’s energy. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions, thus contributing to environmental protection. It also saves you money by reducing the costs of your hot water bills.

Installing a solar hot water system makes great economic sense, as the prices for other energy sources grow and these systems easily pay for themselves over their lifetime (considering current prices they tend to pay for themselves in 5-15 years.). The system can be installed in a few days, and it can work for over 30 years if receiving regular annual maintenance checks.

Solar hot water systems can save over 18% of your tax payments each year. They also increase the property value of your green home.

Usually solar hot water system consists of a solar collector, a heat charger and a storage tank. In general solar collectors, mounted on the roof look like a quality, opaque, glass skylight that improves the appearance of the home.

The suitability is approved too! A typical system requires just up to six meters of roof space for collectors. This is a reliable and tested technology that really works and saves your own resources as well as environmental resources!