How to build an eco friendly home on a budget 202

New Jersey school of architecture professor presents us how to construct an environmental-friendly house cheaply

Did you know that 2 Ny based architects designed an asymmetrical residence with fixed funds of $250,000?

Designers and Jersey City citizens Richard Garber (assistant professor at Nj-new jersey Institute of Technology’s University of Architecture and Design in Newark) and Nicole Robertson of GRO Architects in New York rose to the challenge of constructing and managing the construction of a single-family house that’s an authentic proof of both progressive design and environmental-friendly technology.

Denis Carpenter not long ago purchased a compact vacant lot and, to attempt his concern for the planet, wanted a residence that was environmentally friendly and easy to maintain.

What's so unique about this home?

- In the home, on the floor level, radiant heating under the exposed concrete floor heats up the full bathing room and a couple of sleeping rooms.

- In the attic-like 2nd level, sleek aluminum and stainless steel railings accent the bamboo stairway to the mezzanine, living room area and an artfully designed kitchen made with restored appliances and cabinetry.

- Passive a / c strategies like ceiling fans and clerestory windows permit owners to stay cool during summer and hot during winter months.

- The roof contains 260 sq ft of solar panels that deliver nearly 2,000 kilowatts of energy per year to a battery stored in the basement.

- The root have a 2-foot-square area planted with drought-resist to collect rain .

This single family 1,600-square-foot home was built in six months and won a 2009 American Institute of Architects merit award and the 2010 Green Building of the Year Award from the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency.

So what now? How can you transform your home into an eco-friendly home without investing too much money?

If you're remodeling a home, execute an energy review first to help you establish what energy efficiency developments should and can be made to your home. In this way you'll calculate how much energy your home needs.

My favorite eco-friendly approach is the passive solar cooling/heating design.

Passive solar means that your home's windows, walls, and floors can be made to collect, store, and distribute solar power in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer.

Existing structures can be adapted or "retrofitted" to passively collect and store solar heat too.

The following five factors constitute a comprehensive passive solar home design:

The Collector - The area through which sunlight enters the building (usually windows).

The Absorber - The hard, darkened surface of the storage element. Sunlight hits the surface and is absorbed as heat.

The Thermal Mass - The elements that retain or store the heat generated by sunlight below or behind the absorber surface.

The Distributor - The technique by which solar heat circulates from the collection and storage points to different areas of the house.

The Controller - Roof overhangs can be used to shade the aperture area during warm weather or Thermostats that signal a fan to turn on.

About the Author - Cynthia Booth writes for the <a href="http://www.architecturecareers.org/">architecture careers information</a> blog. It's a nonprofit web-site dedicated to provide help for young designers who need resources for their careers. With this she would like to raise the attention on eco-friendly home design and change the general public idea of energy efficiency.