Green Building

As a member of Green Built Texas and having obtained the national certification known as the Certified Green Professional DeGuire Homes is committed to exceed the code requirements to construct higher performance homes with a lesser environmental impact. The following are GBT guiding principles:

Site Management and Waste Recycling
Green Built Texas homes incorporate efficient site management and waste recycling practices on the jobsite in order to help reduce the environmental impact of the home while under construction. These practices include tree preservation, recycling and storm water control.

Water Efficiency
The average indoor daily water use in today’s homes is estimated to be slightly over 64 gallons. Implementing water conservation measures can significantly reduce this amount and help conserve this vital resource. For this reason, Green Built Texas homes are especially welcomed in North Central Texas, and may help extend current water resources.

Indoor Air Quality
Healthy indoor environments attract many people to “green built” homes. After energy efficiency, the quality of a home’s indoor air is often cited as the most important feature of a green home. This is important in North Central Texas where high levels of allergens and pollen are not uncommon.

Energy Efficiency
Energy consumption is of paramount concern to today’s homebuyers due to financial and far-reaching environmental impacts, which range from the mining of fossil-fuel energy sources to environmental emissions from burning non-renewable energy sources. In an effort to lower energy consumption and reduce the homeowner’s annual utility expenses, all Green Built Texas homes are, at a minimum, built to the EPA’s Energy Star® performance standard, which means that they are at least 15% more energy efficient than homes built to the latest International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) requirements.

Materials
Green Built Texas homes start with the consideration of the environment at the design phase when material selection occurs. Creating efficient designs that maximize function while optimizing the use of natural resources can conserve building materials, most notably, wood. For instance, Green Built Texas homes using engineered lumber products are used to the maximum extent possible. These products can help optimize resources by using materials in which more than 50% more of the log is converted into structural lumber than conventional dimensional lumber.

Homeowner Education
Homeowners play a big role in the house performance and, therefore, should take the utmost care to operate their Green Built Texas home as it was intended. In addition, proper maintenance of the home’s systems will help ensure that a Green Built Texas home will operate at peak performance throughout its lifetime. DeGuire Homes provides a detailed homeowner reference manual that will walk the homeowner through the basic operations of the home’s systems and also provide the homeowner with information and resources on their proper maintenance. For more information about the HBA of Greater Dallas’s Green Built Texas program, visit: www.greenbuiltnorthtexas.com.