Making Your Home Eco-friendly With Leed Construction Initiatives

Making Your Home Eco-friendly With Leed Construction Initiatives

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Are you planning to make some renovations to your home? If so, it is always a good idea to think ahead to the resale value of your home. After all, whenever possible, you want to make certain the renovations you are making are ones that will help increase the value of your home so the investment you make will be worthwhile in the long run. One area that has gained a significant amount of attention and that is certain to increase the value of your home is to implement "green" construction strategies. To that end, you might want to take a closer look at the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, or LEED, certification program to better determine how to go about making your renovations as eco-friendly as possible.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, the LEED certification system involves verifying that a building or a community was designed and constructed with strategies that are meant to improve water efficiency and energy savings while also reducing CO2 emissions and improving indoor environmental quality. By providing building owners with precise strategies and goals, the program aims to help owners develop a practical green design that can be reasonably constructed and maintained. To do so, the certification program addresses eight major areas. These include:

*Energy and atmosphere
*Indoor environmental quality
*Innovation and design process
*Location and planning
*Materials and resources
*Regional priority
*Sustainable sites
*Water efficiency

Clearly, getting your home to be LEED certified will be a major selling point if you should ever put your home on the market. But, even if you don't get your home fully certified, simply implementing some of the construction strategies that are promoted by the LEED certification program will help make your home far more attractive to potential buyers.

While abiding by LEED certification standards can be more costly upfront, many of the construction initiatives supported through the program will provide a savings over time. In fact, while studies have found that following LEED initiatives typically involves making an investment of 2% more, the return will be ten times the investment over the lifetime of the building. Further research has shown that existing buildings that undergo renovations in order to be LEED-EB certified experience a high return on investment.

The bottom line is that renovating your home in a way that aligns with LEED certification initiatives is an excellent way to reduce your carbon footprint while also enjoying a greater return on your investment. Therefore, if it is time to make some renovations, be sure to keep these initiatives in mind so you can get the most out of the money you invest in your home.


About the Author:
Ryan Lynch works for a real estate team that helps buyers and sellers with luxury homes in Austin. His team specializes in the Steiner Ranch Community as well as the River Place Community.



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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