When designing their new home, homeowners are increasingly demanding the integration of environmentally conscious products into their home construction. Sustainability is a desired feature, because not only do they add beauty, they reduce a home’s carbon footprint. When it comes to your home’s design, consider some of these green home features:

Solar Panels: Solar panel popularity is multi-faceted: Solar power installation can save you money, increase the value of your property and be a great investment that also helps the environment.

Flooring: When choosing your flooring, opt for natural, renewable, or recycled flooring sources. For example, bamboo flooring is a grass which, unlike trees, can be harvested every five years. Another option is floor panels. Look for floor panels which conform to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Standard, which promotes responsible forestland management in North America.

Cabinetry: Green cabinetry that is certified by the KCMA environmental stewardship program assures you that stringent requirements for process resource management, air quality, community relations, and environmental stewardship have been met.

For more ideas about building a greener home, contact us at Trilogy Partners.

image via Flickr

Solar panels are an alternative energy system that reduces your energy costs and actually increases the value of your home. In fact, buyers will “pay a premium” to own a solar-paneled home.

No longer considered “ugly,” solar panels can now be attractively incorporated into your green home design. Another option for larger roofs are solar shingles that look like traditional shingles.

Trilogy Partners combine sustainability and visual ambiance in Colorado solar power installations. Internationally, six home designs have been recognized for incorporating eco-friendly solar panels into attractive and striking home design:

1. Activehouse, Austria and Denmark – Solar panels actually generate more energy than the families need.
2. Malibu 5 Modern Beach House – Roof solar panels and hot water collectors are invisible in this home built from recycled materials.
3. Enertia Home, Blue Ridge Mountains, NC – Solid-wood walls are energy efficient and the roof solar provide electricity.
4. Cornell University Solar Decathlon Home – Solar power is the only energy source for this 800 sq.ft. home.
5. SunPower – Westport, CT – A 5kw solar system using 225-watt solar panels works well on smaller roofs.
6. SRS Energy Palm Springs, CA – Solar roofing tiles blend into the home’s tiled roof.

Is your home a good candidate for solar panels?

Google has been making news of late with its opening of Google Plus to all users, but we are more interested in Google’s new investment in solar power systems right here in Colorado. Partnering with Clean Power Finance, Google will invest $75 million to help install 3,000 homes with solar panel systems in Colorado, California and Arizona.

Google writes in their Google Green Blog that “it makes a lot of sense to use solar photovoltaic (PV) technology—rooftop solar panels—to generate electricity right where you need it at home. It greens our energy mix by using existing roof space while avoiding transmission constraints, and it can be cheaper than drawing electricity from the traditional grid.”

According to Google, “The installer builds the system, the investor owns it (in this case, Google), and homeowners pay a monthly payment for the system, at a price that’s often less than paying for energy from the grid. Maintenance and performance are taken care of by Clean Power Finance and its network of installers.”

With Google already having invested in $850 million in green energy, their new solar panel investment is just another way that Google is branding themselves as “green”.

For more information visit www.cleanpowerfinance.com.

After Kyle M, a successful Colorado direct marketing business man became a father his perspective changed. Watching his children grow older and seeing the environmental challenges they would face, he began to learn all he could to convert his Colorado home from an energy hog to an energy miser. Kyle succeeded. He hired a Denver solar engineering firm to install a 10 kW solar photovoltaic array which reduced his electric bill by 75 percent. He put in a solar greenhouse which brings heated air into the home and doubles as a cozy family room. He switched out his light bulbs to compact fluorescent (CFLs) which use about 1⁄4 the energy of incandescent light bulbs. Perhaps most importantly he used technology to assist him and his family to make significant lifestyle changes to conserve energy. He learned that by programming simple occupancy sensor devices to turn lights off in key rooms after two minutes of no activity, he could dramatically reduce his energy usage – without the constant reminders  his family “… please turn the lights off when you leave the room!” Kyle set an even higher goal when he decided to buy a lot on Timber Trail Road to build a ski in/ski out mountain home in Breckenridge. This luxury Summit County house would be a net zero energy home. The goal was to design and build an 8,000 sq. ft. highly attractive mountain home that fit seamlessly into the existing neighborhood and whose renewable energy systems were well integrated into the overall house design. Over the following months, a skilled and committed team of professionals was brought together to achieve these goals. This is the first time in Summit County that a team of this depth and experience in environmental building and renewable energy solutions has been assembled.