How Green Is Green In Housing?

By John Vlahakis

What would your definition of a green home be? Does it just mean a home built from sustainable materials and is energy efficient? How far should we define the meaning of green homes? Green architects and environmentalists will argue that a green home needs to have all of the above-mentioned criteria. But, I would offer one more criteria that tend to be over looked; the actual foot print of a new home. We cannot stop people from their desire to build a new home, but just how big should a new home be, and can we call homes that are in the McMansion category a green home even if they have been built to green standards? Taking up land to build new subdivisions has always been one of my pet peeves, but the desire to own something new runs deep in our society. We all like something new, but the finite realities of our resources, and even our prosperity perhaps needs to address just how big should a home be, built before it can no longer be considered green due to the size of the home. For instance a 10,000 square foot home for one average family is an extreme luxury in my opinion. The average home built in the U.S. is 2500 square feet. The McMansions could easily accommodate three families. Our standard of an average U.S. built home of 2500 square feet far exceeds the world average of 1100 square feet for a home. Green doesn’t just mean water conservation showerheads and compost able toilets. The foot print of a home needs to be added into our definition of what constitutes a green home. Not considering the size factor of a new home into the green equation, just green washes the fact that these big homes use more energy, and require more resources to maintain them.