The Greenest home is typically one that is already built. We are here to help you update any home to be more efficient, have better performance and make clean energy. Our drive is to meet the goals of our clients. Whether you want to simply stop the bleeding of energy waste, or add renewable/clean energy, we are here to help.

A “Green Home” is a home that has been built, or renovated, to a higher performance standard. In order to market a home as “Green” it must then be verified by an independent 3rd party. These homes will come with a label to certify the home as “green” or a Home Energy Score to show the performance of the home. Some of the more common labels are:

• LEED for Homes – by the US Green Building Council (USGBC)
• Energy Star – by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• Home Energy Rating Score (HERS) – the is the “miles per gallon” rating of the home. The lower the score, the better.
• Home Energy Score (HEscore) – Less in depth than a HERS rating, but this works well for existing homes. The higher the score, the better. 

Bear in mind that a green home label must be earned at the time of new construction. These are the homes that were built green and independently verified as they were built. A home energy score can be done for any home.

Renewablue loves to work with green homes, but we also consider one of the greenest homes to be one that is already built. The environmental impacts of new construction are vast. For us, we consider the Renewablue mark to be that of an older home that has gone through our process and taken action to update energy efficiency and add green features. Whether you save 5% or 95% of your energy needs after your retrofit, we’ll provide you with before and after analysis to build your marketing strategy for a higher value, whenever you decide to sell.

EF·FI·CIEN·CY

noun \i-ˈfi-shən-sē\

: the ability to do something or produce something without wasting materials, time, or energy

First Things First: Seal the building envelope.

“We’re not air-conditioning the whole neighborhood!” This was the favorite line of my mother as I would leave the door open in the middle of a hot Texas summer. The lesson learned is that in order to retrofit a home to be green, the first step is to reduce the amount of energy that is being wasted. The average home in America has enough air leakage to add up to be a two-foot -square hole*. That’s like leaving a medium sized window open, all day. If only Mama Mitchell knew…

*source: Energy.gov, James Mitchell speaker