Green Home Essay

The growing pollution through greenhouse gasses and the loss of natural beauty, rare ecosystems and basic resources have led to the development of two very important designer and construction concepts – green building and sustainable design. The way we build our houses and chose the materials for them can have a great influence on our future and the future of our planet. The role of green houses in modern building is crucial and the process of constructing them must obtain a strong governmental and financial support.

In general, a green home is a type of house made of environmentally friendly materials and designed to be sustainable, focusing on the efficient use of various resources: water, energy, raw materials and many others.

Unfortunately, there are no international standards on what is considered to be a green remodel. Most of the green houses are built to conserve energy or water, improve indoor air quality and produce less waste in the process of their exploitation.

The green building movement had actually started in the 1970s, after the raw materials and oil prices began to rise sharply. The situation required new progressive measures and building concepts. That is why the green building concept has become so popular and widespread. Nowadays there are different types of certification systems that declare a house to be sustainable and green. The US Green Building Council is a typical example of an organization that gives out green home certificates. The factors that it considers in its certification system include the site location, use of energy and water, recycling, use of renewable energy and protection of natural resources. But these are only a few factors which determine the main features of a green house. In 2009 and 2010 the European citizens were offered a new type of green homes with completely different features. These houses not only saved energy and resources, but also created an isolated system of water, air and energy supply, where, for example, the water taken once from the springs is used many times and runs through a specific purification system. Moreover, these new green houses are to replace old buildings in the poorest and worst developed city districts. Spain and Italy have already built about 10 000 new green homes and their governments are interested in extending the program and constructing up to 200 000 modern eco houses.

Of course, we shall be able to evaluate the results of these programs only in 5-10 years, but it’s quite obvious that the green house concept is very perspective and gives the further generations a chance to live in harmony with their environment and nature.