Ever since my parents moved to New England and purchased an antique colonial (built in 1739), they’ve spent their time, energy and money repairing, updating, and rebuilding this little piece of history. We all love the house (more so since the major renovations were completed in 2005), and my parents have worked hard to maintain the historical integrity of the structure while still adding their own touches and updating the space to suit their needs.

When planning the original renovations (which included the construction of a small addition, the complete remodeling of the kitchen, the replacement of 7 out of 10 corners of the house (!), new windows, the re-clapboarding of most of the exterior, and a new floor plan for half of the first floor), my mom and dad hired 2 amazing contractors who specialize in working on old houses.

The contractors – Robin and Bill – spent months ripping out rotted posts, fitting level windows into less-than-level walls, designing a functional staircase for the most frustrating space possible, figuring out how unsupported walls were still standing, building new bathrooms, and generally fixing every problem you could possibly imagine (boulders beneath the kitchen floor, rotted-out walls, antiquated everything). And while Robin and Bill did the heavy lifting (and hammering and building and installing), my parents did what they could to cut costs, speed up construction, and reduce the waste generated in the renovations.

One of my parents’ main concerns during the construction was in reducing construction waste, recycling what could be salvaged, and reusing materials whenever possible. Construction jobs generally generate lots and lots of trash (everything from old appliances to lumber tends to get tossed in dumpsters), but my parents were committed to making their project as green as possible. And they seemed to have succeeded in that regard – according to their contractors, the waste generated during the renovations of my parent’s house was about 50% less than the waste generated on their typical jobs.

One way that my mom and dad reduced their output was by reusing fixtures, doors, moldings and floorboards that were already stashed away somewhere in the house. Instead of buying new doors, they used doors that had lived in the attic for over 100 years. Instead of pouring a concrete walk, they built a path using bricks a friend had been planning on trashing. My dad cut down old doors and built a cover for their 50 X 55 inch fireplace, while my mom crafted a pot rack out of a discarded metal wheel she found on the side of the road.

My parents also visited salvage yards (specifically Antique Salvage Inc. in Exeter, New Hampshire) and bought columns for their front porch, floor joists, and a sink for their potting bench. The floorboards in their front hallway were the original attic boards, and are amazing foot-wide boards that you simply cannot buy. When the front porch was built, my mom had a massive stone (dug out during construction) hauled to the front of the house, and installed as a step up to the porch. My parents reused anything they could, and were able to incorporate their green principles into the structure of their home.

If you’re contemplating a home renovation, you may not have the same stock of stuff my parents had when they were working on their project (when you are married for 39 years, and you buy a 269 year-old home, you just have a lot of everything), but you can take baby steps to reduce your footprint in the process.

1. Consider buying light fixtures, doors, garden accessories, and lumber from architectural salvage yards. These businesses are repositories of all kinds of interesting, difficult to find, and antique building materials that are generally less expensive and more environmentally-friendly than buying similar new materials.

2. Think of your town or city’s transfer station (or dump) as a place to drop-off and potentially pick-up stuff. My parents rescued several plants that had been left at the dump – perfectly good plants that would have otherwise died, and which now thrive in their yard. You can sometimes find discarded bricks, lumber and other building materials at dumps too – just check with your city’s rules regarding removing materials from the dump.

3. While installing new windows and doors isn’t cheap, your investment will be repaid in lower energy costs and a cozier home once the weather turns cold. Make sure you replace windows and exterior door with energy efficient upgrades. My parents went with Marvin Windows for their home (specifically because they fit the architectural style of their house), but Pella and Anderson Windows also make energy efficient models.

4. Don’t just throw away appliances, building materials and fixtures that are ripped out during construction. While my mom got a beautiful new sink for her kitchen, she held on to the old sink and installed it in her art studio. You can breathe new life into light fixtures, doors, floorboards and other items by using them differently elsewhere in your home.

5. If you need specific items to finish a project, don’t just head to the store and buy something new. Post your need on a bulletin board like CraigsList, scour the classifieds in your local newspaper and in building publications (such as This Old House), and don’t be ashamed to grab discarded items off of curbs on trash day! One man’s trash is truly another man’s treasure, and people throw out all kinds of perfectly clean, usable items. Yard sales, flea markets and antique stores can be good places to find items you need to finish your renovations, so consider getting up early on the weekends before simply heading out to buy stuff at Target.

For too long we’ve been a society that’s ready to junk what’s old and replace it with newly minted products that aren’t made using sustainable practices. It’s time to change our habits and start redefining our definition of garbage. Home renovations are expensive to begin with, but you can cut costs and cut your waste if you take some of the above practices into consideration when you think about updating your home.

All photos courtesey of Ann & Charlie Bacon.

As the general population really starts to embrace the green movement in their lives and communities, we have to consider that green buildings and green construction are probably going to explode in the next few years. Green building and construction is on the rise – small towns all over America are passing ordinances and legislation that mandates green initiatives in all new construction projects and encourages green building otherwise.

To assist those who may be interested in proposing local legislation aimed at promoting green construction, I’ve comprised a list of organizations that help industry professionals take their communities and commercial districts into the green era. These resources have literature that can be used to educate citizens, governments and businesses, and also information that can actually be used to guide the green building process.

The US Green Building Council is a non-profit organization dedicated to making green buildings accessible to everyone in this country within a generation.

To promote the design, construction and maintenance of green buildings, the organization has developed a rating system and voluntary certification program that allows architects, real estate professionals, facility managers, engineers, interior designers, landscape architects, construction managers, lenders and government officials to implement green design, building and operations standards in new and existing construction. According to the organization,

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System? encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices…and provides benchmarks for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.

For communities that have initiated legislation requiring all new construction projects to be green certified, the rating system and certification program developed by the US Green Building Council is a great place to learn about all of the technologies, products and services that exist to help communities go green.

Another site to check out if you’re involved in construction is BuildingGreen, is an independent company committed to providing accurate, unbiased, and timely information designed to help building-industry professionals and policy makers improve the environmental performance, and reduce the adverse impacts, of buildings. BuildingGreen has a library full of information designed to help industry professionals learn about their green and “integrated design” building options.

Using the BuildGreen site, you can find out about the impact of every stage of a building process, and discover the tools available to help minimize your project’s harm to the environment. The site has literature about what it even means to be green, and offers some interesting case studies on how companies have applied green building practices in their construction projects.

Additional Resources

The US Green Building Council has a huge list of Green Building Links to help industry professionals develop and implement green building standards in all of their projects.

The US Department of Energy High Performance Buildings Database is comprised of 99 case studies with a focus on the green building practices applied during construction.

The Cost of Green Revisited by Davis Langdon contains research results obtained by examining the true cost of new construction using the LEED Rating System verses non-LEED certified buildings and finds that there is no discernible difference in the overall construction costs.

eco-structure is a bimonthly magazine for construction industry professionals looking to learn about sustainability and green building design, construction and operations.