Homeowner resources

Green your house or apartment

Making your home more efficient, healthy, and durable will pay off for you and for the environment. Many green improvements are simple and affordable. We hope that these resources* will guide you to the best opportunities for greening your home and help you find the products and services to get the job done.

Home design and construction

Green & Lean (PDF), GreenHOME's case study of our volunteer effort to build a green Habitat for Humanity house in DC, documents our choices of materials and methods that would perform at a reasonable cost. Check out the discussion of the different types of insulation, for example.

Arlington's Green Home Choice Program is a great place to start. It offers incentives for homebuilders, and it's website includes a listings of green builders, contractors, architects, specialists, and product suppliers.

The US Green Building Council's Green Home Guide provides a strong overview of green building topics, from remodeling to purchasing a green home.

Green building products and services

The Green Home Building and Remodeling Resource Directory, maintained by Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment, offers a fairly comprehensive list of green building service providers and product suppliers.

The Amicus Green Building Center has a large and growing selection of green building products, right in Kensington, Maryland.

Eco-Green Living, in Washington, DC, also carries a wide range of green building and home products.

Energy and climate change

ENERGY STAR has an impressive array of tools, information, and certified products to help you improve the efficiency of your home. You can benchmark your home energy use, find solutions to common household problems, and explore a range of efficient appliances. (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)

The Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy highlights the opportunities to save energy, from air sealing to dish washing.

The Cool Capital Challenge lets you calculate your carbon footprint, then join the regional campaign to reduce emissions.

Health

Health House, from the American Lung Association, is a guide to building methods, products, and maintenance practices that will make your home healthy and comfortable.

Reuse and Recycling

The Builders' Guide to Reuse and Recycling is the directory for construction and demolition reuse and recycling in the metropolitan Washington region.

Community Forklift and ReStore sell surplus and used building materials and home improvement items to the general public.

Other

The Green Building Institute offers a variety of green building and related classes and events.

DC Greenworks is the region's leading green roof provider and a job training program for underserved area residents.

* While we think that the resources listed on this page are a good place to start, Greenspace does not officially endorse them over others..