Why Go Green?

Green building is the practice of increasing the efficiency with which buildings use resources – energy, water, and materials – while reducing building impacts on human health and the enviroment, through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal – the complete building life cycle.

Our experience in green building began with our personal lives. It began with a conscience choice to live a healthy lifestyle:

• to buy green (organic, free-range, no hormone, no antibiotics, no chemicals or additives or pesticides)
• to buy fair-trade
• to buy used, and
• mostly importantly, to buy less.

Our healthy lifestyle choice informed our green lifestyle to greening our home in the most basic ways:

• switching from incandescent light bulbs to more energy efficient ones, like the compact fluorescent lights (which uses 75% less energy and lasts 10X longer)
• deterring indoor air pollutants by placing plants around our home (plants act as an air purifier)
• utilizing power strips to turn off our electronic devices when not in use (electronic devices, such as phone charges, TV, DVD players, computers) which, if left directly plugged into your outlets, will still consume electricity.
• keeping faucets tightened (one drop leaking every second will equal 155 gallons of wasted water per month)
• replacing our conventional shower head/bathroom/kitchen faucet, and toilet with a low-flow plumbing fixtures.

Our personal green lifestyle eventually fed our professional lifestyle. So, at Azetca 111 Builders, Inc. we try to assist homeowners in formulating green building alternatives. Such as:

• inform clients about our building practices of recycling or re-claiming old lumber to build indoor/outdoor furniture.
• send approximately 70% of the materials that we demolish, such as windows, doors, lumber, concrete, and pipes to recycling centers instead of the landfills.
• urge clients to green their homes: to better insulate their homes, and to seal any possible air leaks (which may need caulking, sealing or weather-stripping)
• suggest that clients make smarter consumer choices: such as consider purchasing tankless or solar water heaters, solar energy technology (concentrating solar power systems, photovoltaics, solar heating, solar lighting) and choose energy-star (energy-efficient) appliances (which may cost more initially but those initial costs will be offset by energy savings and longer equipment life)
• propose that clients either install storm windows over single-pane windows or replacing the single-pane windows entirely with Low-E double-pane windows.
• advocate for sustainable design/engineering practices for new construction, such as passive solar architecture.
• promote permaculture design practices.
• being certified in one of the latest sustainable building practices, known as Eco-Domes, where builders focus on the unique Earth (Superadobe) and/or Ceramic Architecture techniques. This type of building allows for the holistic learning methods of four thousand years of earth architecture and ceramics, Geltaftan and Superadobe technologies, rammed earth, and adobe. To learn more about this green building alternative, visit: Cal-Earth – The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture at: www.calearth.org
• ultimately, we try to direct our clients into remodeling or building a high performance home, which will use less energy, cost less to maintain and use fewer natural resources.