Eco-friendly prize has Lowcountry pedigree

A nature-inspired color and high-efficiency windows only begin to tell the story of the green house at River Oaks Way and Redbud Lane. Thanks to a lot of planning, the sage-colored house's eco-friendly qualities extend far beyond those characteristics.

Solar panels on the roof and a shoe cubby just inside the front door all help to inform those looking for ways to live a greener life. But the home, in a new development in Hardeeville, between Hilton Head and Savannah, is not for sale at any price.

The 2,000-square-foot furnished residence is HGTV's first Green Home and will be given away in a nationwide contest. The winner of the house, in Tradition Hilton Head, a new Core Communities development, will be announced during a June 8 television broadcast. It's part of an $850,000 contest package that includes a GMC Yukon Hybrid.

'Vernacular is front and center here,' says Jack Thomasson, HGTV's house planner.

Thomasson has overseen construction of 11 of the 12 homes featured in HGTV's annual 'Dream Home Giveaway.'

'We wanted to build a Lowcountry cottage, charming, cute and green,' he says.

The three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath cottage has received a gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, also known as LEED, certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit group that wants to make eco-friendly buildings accessible to everyone within one generation. It certifies that the Green Home meets the group's standards for sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, indoor environmental quality and innovative design.

'The HGTV Green Home is designed to demonstrate that you don't have to be extreme to be green,' Thomasson says.

It provides affordable examples for those who want to make eco-friendly lifestyle decisions for their own homes. They include a rainwater-harvesting system for operating the water-efficient toilets and irrigating the low-maintenance landscape of native vegetation. The water flows into a cistern that can hold 500 gallons.

Solar panels on the roof provide enough energy to power the house for 72 hours and save about 20 percent of the electricity that would be provided by a power plant, says Thomasson. The home's owner will be able to use the energy it generates to offset what it consumes from the power company.

The orientation of the house on the site helps to control ventilation through the placement of its four porches, efficient glazed windows to reflect heat and provide insulation and large overhangs for energy efficiency. The house also has spray-foam insulation in the ceiling and interior walls. Rigid insulation panels are used over the moisture barriers on the exterior walls.

Thomasson says everything needed to build the house was readily available. That might not have been the case just a few years ago.

Furnishings

In designing the cottage's interior, Linda Woodrom of T.F. Hudson Interiors, who also has decorated 11 of HGTV's Dream Homes, found that learning the ways in which homeowners can be more green was fascinating.

'Green is not about design style, it's about lifestyle,' Woodrom says. 'You can have any style home you want and be green. We wanted to create a regular home, not a granola-ish macrame home where everybody eats macrobiotic food.'

The house's shoe cubby earned a LEED point, says Woodrom. Using a cubby cuts down on the dirt tracked into a home, avoids the chemicals that might be used to clean the floor and stems wear that could result in cutting down trees to make a new floor.

Being green can be about reusing furniture because that avoids consuming the natural resources and polluting production processes to make new furniture. It also can be about furnishing a house with pieces made of waste goods, recycled items and easily replenished materials. And it's about choosing new pieces made with organic materials and using processes that result in fewer chemicals being released into the environment.

Some of the furniture in the Green Home, such as the custom four-poster bed in the master bedroom, was made locally with waste lumber from the construction site. That cuts down on waste disposal and transporting the bed, which causes more air and global warming pollution.

Lamps in the house are made of recycled metal, glass and papier-mache by artisans in Mexico and Haiti and use energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs.

The upholstered furniture in the great room is made by Cisco using frames made of wood from sustainable forests, organic foam padding and organic cotton. Carpets in the house are by Shaw and are made of recycled materials. When they are no longer used, they can be returned to the company, which will recycle the fibers again.

Paints low in volatile organic compounds, also known as VOCs, are used to avoid unhealthy indoor emissions. Low VOC emission levels also were a big consideration in the selection of furniture and carpets.

Woodrom says she used reconditioned wicker furniture on the porches and covered the cushions with long-lasting Sunbrella fabric to avoid having to replace it.

The interior designer chose efficient Kenmore Energy Star appliances from Sears for the kitchen. Counters in the room are made of CaesarStone natural quartz, which has built-in antimicrobial protection to fight bacteria.

'Don't be intimidated' about making your home greener, Woodrom advises. 'None of us can possibly go out and do our house green overnight. It's baby steps.'

Reach Wevonneda Minis at 937-5705 or at wminis@postandcourier.com.

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