 If you're planning on renovating your home, EnviroCitizen.org highly recommends the REGREEN guide. The American Society of Interior Designers' Foundation and the United States Green Building Council collaborated to create the REGREEN guide. Together, they partnered with the goal to develop a sort of “best practices” guidelines for sustainable residential improvement and renovation projects.
The REGREEN guide offers a lot of helpful information, including ten case studies that highlight some of the sustainable strategies that you can adopt. It also includes simple practices that you can easily implement to make your home greener. It addresses small projects, like installing a new dishwasher, to large projects like renovating your entire home. It's a great guide because it allows you to tailor your projects to compliment your individual situation, including the site of your home and the size and scope of your project. One of the best aspects of the REGREEN guide is that it went through a public comment review, so that all interested parties and stakeholders had an opportunity to provide feedback. As a result, the guide is relevant, helpful and practical.
The REGREEN guide has 3 main parts. The first part lists remodeling projects that are described by scope. It talks about pre-design issues and offers environmentally-friendly strategies for different systems in your home, like your heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) system and your electrical system. The second part of the REGREEN guide offers a comprehensive collection of strategies that are organized by environmental topics. The final part is composed of ten case studies of successful green home renovations that were previously touched upon.
The United States Green Building Council is well-known for its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. LEED certifies new homes (if they qualify), but the LEED program does not address existing homes. The REGREEN guide steps in and encompasses existing home renovations. Although you can't get your home LEED certified after your renovations, you can enjoy the fact that your renovated, greener home was designed with the same standards that developers pay a substantial amount of money for when they seek LEED certification.
Perhaps the best thing about the REGREEN guide is that it's absolutely free. You can download it today as a PDF. This idea of economical resources can extend into your project. Granted, you're not going to get a free renovation when you go green, a green renovation doesn't have to cost you any more than a traditional renovation. There are many benefits to having a greener home, one of the biggest being that your maintenance costs will be considerably lower than before.
In conjunction with the REGREEN guide, you can take advantage of the webinars that are also offered (though they aren't free). The webinars explain the market demand for green remodeling and helps you to further understand how the REGREEN guide can help you to incorporate green options into your remodeling project. They also inform you on many other green topics, making you the expert when it comes to green renovations.
EnviroCitizen.org is pleased to see materials such as the REGREEN guide surface as they provide a way for individuals who would like to transition to a greener way of life to do so.
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