Painting The Town Green.

McKinney is about more than just recycling residential garbage. McKinney is the home to several unique projects with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ as set forth by the U.S. Green Building Council. The rating is the national standard for the design, construction and operation of green buildings.

According to the the USGBC, commercial and residential buildings use a full two thirds of electricity and 40% of all energy used. With 136 million tons of construction and demolition waste annually, these buildings contribute 40% of the green houses gases. Many U.S. cities are joining in to require builders to use more energy efficient practices and materials, especially in Texas.

Wal-Mart chose McKinney to build their only two environmentally sustainable stores. They will be prototypes for future stores nationally. There are some really cool features like used cooking and motor oil for heating fuel, 12'' shorter buildings that reduce the energy usage and "optically efficient" lighting in the main shopping areas. As I read the list of sustainability features they seemed amazingly simple.

The McKinney Green Building has received a lot of press. The 61,000 sqft. blends well into the area made up primarily of residential rooftops. As a tenant here, you have guidelines to encourage sustainability in your office. The large white tanks on either end of the building (the white, vertical tubes in the picture) are holding tanks for rainwater to help maintain the hearty, native landscape. One of the unique features to this building is the raised floors that promote air distribution and improve indoor air quality.

All of the top builders in the area build Energy Star qualified homes. I wasn't surprised to see the H Homes group of Horizon, Highland, Huntington and Sanders on the list as 100% committed to building all of their homes to these standards. I have one client that runs their new 4,300+ square foot Huntington with lower energy bills than their previous 1991 built 3,000 square foot home. Radiant barriers, low-e windows, and air conditioning units with higher SEER ratings, are all amazingly effective at saving the planet and saving you money.

I'm proud of the green initiatives that McKinney is leading with. While it's debatable that the global warming is our imminent doom, reducing waste and increasing efficiency is always a good thing.

To find out more buying an energy efficient home, call/email me.