By Julie Bonnin

If you’re in the market for a custom-built home, there really isn’t a reason not to build green. Who doesn’t want a smaller utility bill? Or to leave a reduced carbon footprint on your corner of planet Earth? FreeGreen, a web site with free green home designs, allows users to browse a listing of green house plans that range from strikingly modern to suburban friendly.

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Even those among us who spend a fair deal of time daydreaming about living in a solar-powered home may stop short of actually shopping for the required equipment. You can’t just hop down to Home Depot and pick up a photovoltaic rig, after all, and we all know it’s expensive.

Happily, some pioneers are making themselves guinea pigs and sharing their experiences with anyone who’s interested.

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By Tom Kessler
Colorado developers have announced what they say is the country’s largest net-zero energy, master-planned community in Arvada, Colo., a suburb of Denver. Geos Neighborhood, which will begin infrastructure construction this fall, will feature 250 residences and can generate enough renewable energy to supply 100 percent of the annual energy needs of the entire [...]

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By Paula Minahan
The idea of living in a truly sustainable green environment is a homeowner’s dream: Lower energy bills, healthier materials,

Photo: Barley & Pfeiffer Architects
Overhangs provide protection from the sun.
the satisfaction of “doing the right thing.” But with our slumping U.S. economy, many worry about holding onto their home — let alone building a [...]

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By Paula Minahan
Peter Pfeiffer doesn’t mince words. His passion for green building takes an almost proselytizing tone at times. And it’s no wonder. The straight-shooting architect has spent the past 30 years at the forefront of the

Photo: Barley & Pfeiffer Architects
 
Peter Pfeiffer’s green house in Austin
green building movement. The award-winning work of his Austin-based firm, [...]

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By Julie Bonnin
Era Ford met EcoBroker Stephanie Edwards-Musa at a class on green building offered at Rice University in Houston.
Now the two of them are on a home tour in the Heights, a historic neighborhood near downtown, and just a few steps inside the door Ford is all but pumping her fist in the [...]

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By John DeFore
As counterintuitive as it sounds for those raised to think of all trees as environmentally precious, there are some varieties that prove a nuisance, possibly even a hazard, in certain areas.
Western juniper, for instance. While natural wildfire/regrowth cycles once kept juniper under control, modern firefighting efforts have sometimes allowed the trees [...]

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By Michele Chan Santos

On a quiet street in the tree-covered city of Rollingwood, a suburb of Austin, Texas, sits a house designed to epitomize everything technology and modern design can do to make a home environmentally friendly and safe for families with children.

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By John DeFore
Of all the products that made BuildingGreen’s new Top 10 list, the one most likely to be of use to those of us who aren’t building homes (or remodeling kitchens) any time soon is the LR6 LED Downlight from LLF. Designed for use in recessed lighting fixtures, the downlight offers predictable benefits over [...]

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By Barbara Kessler
As the sub-prime loan implosion continues to seep the red ink of bad mortgages, home builders have been seeking cover in the color green.
No, it’s not yet a Christmas party. Building starts remain sluggish across the country. But green building, that once pigeonholed province of hippies and do-gooders, is growing despite the [...]

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By Harriet L. Blake
BOSTON — Green is the word among a growing number of multi-family housing projects around the nation, from San Francisco to Austin and beyond. In Boston, developer Tim Pappas has built the city’s first residential “green building.” The Macallen Building, which opened in June, is a condominium development that incorporates the environment [...]

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By Barbara Kessler
It is 86 degrees as the afternoon sun assaults the asphalt roofs of Frisco, Texas. But it is cool inside the Craftsman-style house on Beacon Hill Drive.
The usual whir of the AC, ever present in so many area houses, has been replaced by the sounds of gently rustling leaves and breezes outside [...]

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