If you are planning on buying a custom home, there are a lot of features to look for in the design. Some of the new custom home plans can be green designs with energy-efficient solutions. During the process of building your new custom home, you will want to work with your builder to have a home design that is more efficient. The following custom home building guide will help you give your new home a greener design.
Start with a good foundation design
The first area that you need to start with for good energy-efficient home design is the foundation. If you are building a ranch-style home, a well-insulated and encapsulated crawl space will improve the efficiency of your home. If you are going with a basement-style foundation plan, talk to the custom home builder about making part of the basement area main floor living space. The lower floor space will be protected from changes in weather and require less energy to heat and cool.
Floor plans and energy-efficient passive heating and cooling
The floor plan is also something else that you will want to consider for your energy-efficient home design. A good layout with plenty of natural light during the winter months will help provide passive heating. For passive cooling, you can have areas of your main floor space below exterior soil grade, and make sure that hot air can escape through upstairs windows or high dormer windows on the roof if you are using a ranch-style plan.
Energy-efficient lighting designs for new custom home designs
The lighting design for your new custom home is another important aspect to plan when building. Today, there are modern technologies like LED light strips and bulbs or CFL light bulbs that can be used in the lighting design for your new home. If you want to maximize the energy efficiency of lighting, use LED lighting solutions wherever possible in your new custom home design.
Insulation and custom home building materials for better thermal barriers
There are also a lot of options for modern building materials that can be used for the design of your home. Today, these materials can include foam insulation, rigid foam insulated sheathing, and modern composite building materials that are designed to improve the exterior thermal barriers and make your home more energy-efficient.
The right design features will give your new home a greener, more energy-efficient design. Call a custom home plan service and ask them about green passive energy solutions for the design of your new home.
it is interesting that, as a society, we have decided to lump so many different jobs and trades under the umbrella term of "contracting." One person could use the work contractor to refer to someone who is framing a new building. Another person could use the word "contractor" to refer to someone who was painting walls. Don't even get us started on the term "construction worker." That one's pretty vast, too!
Since we realized we cannot possible say everything we want to say about construction and contractors in a few paragraphs, we decided to write a blog. And if you are reading this right now, you've found it. Please stick around and read a bit!