Ready-made designs are now available for green homes

Who needs an architect? Chic, ready-made designs are now available -- some at no cost -- for green homes, even ones so efficient they can reduce energy consumption by up to 90%.

More companies are selling eco-designs online, and if you have a fairly flat lot and no particular vision for your home, they can save money. Hiring an architect for a custom design can add 8% to 17% to your project's cost.

I hesitate to mention this, because my own architects are worth every penny. Our quarter-acre property in Falls Church, Va., where we're hoping to break ground next month, slopes downward. When I looked at stock house plans, none quite worked. Our design does.

Still, you may want to check out the low-cost eco-home plans of Free Green, (some of its many designs are free; the one in the top photo is not) or Fab-Homes, a Vancouver-based design studio.

This month, Fab-Homes launched its first collection of pre-designed "passive" houses  for the North American market. These homes, based on standards developed in Germany, are designed to use up to 90% less energy than a standard house and up to 50% less that those earning the U.S. Green Building Council's top or platinum rating. 

How do they do it? The homes have such a tight envelop or exterior -- via superior insulation, triple-glazed windows, compact floorplans and passive solar gain -- that they need very little heating or cooling. Thousands of them have been built in Europe in recent years.  You can read more about them on the Passive House Institute's website.

Fab-Homes' contemporary designs also call for a heat recovery ventilator to circulate air, solar photovoltaics to produce power and roof gardens to add insulation and capture/reuse rainwater.

The company expects the construction costs of its homes, depending on location and options selected, to start at about $155 per square foot. Later this year, it plans to make some of its models available as factory-built or prefab homes. It also plans to offer townhome and multifamily designs.

Readers: Which of these designs do you like best? Would you buy/build any?
Source: usatoday.com