Standard Green Building Practices
Green building techniques and design are considered for all Teton Heritage Builders projects. This approach helps decrease heating and cooling costs, increase indoor air quality, reduce operations and maintenance costs, conserve natural resources and water as well as make the most of natural light. The use of alternative energy sources - photovoltaic panels, geothermal heat pumps, and passive solar design - can dramatically decrease the fossil fuel consumption of a home.
THB incorporates many standard green building techniques. One common practice is the Blower Door Test. This process is used to quantify air leakage. Air leaking out of a building can carry damage-causing moisture into building cavities and heat out. A blower door test uses a powerful fan that mounts into an exterior door frame. The fan pulls air out of the house, lowering the air pressure inside. The higher outside air pressure then flows in through all unsealed cracks and openings. Once these leakage areas are identified materials such as caulking, weather strips, and spray foam are used to seal the areas and improves the home's energy performance.
Another standard green technique is the use of heat recovery ventilators (HRVs). HRVs achieve two primary goals: they re-cycle heat out of exhausted air and they improve the quality of the air inside a home. A heat recovery ventilator will capture the heat from exhaust air and use it to pre-treat forced air in a building thus improving the energy efficiency of a home. A HRV will also exhaust stale air out of a building removing radon and other vapors from a building that will improve the health atmosphere of the home.