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Affordable Green Home Plans from a Certified EA Professional

Recently an Earth Advantage Institute certified Sustainable Homes Professional, Bruce Butler, wrote to us to let us know how our training paid off for him. Bruce has developed sustainable house plans for stock plan purchase.

I'd like to add that the pay-off is really for all of us. These aren't your ordinary stock plans! As we move toward more sustainable building, we need designers like Bruce to make house plans available to builders and consumers.

Each plan has been designed with these things in mind:

• Advanced, energy efficient design that's affordable to build 
• Small House concept for a sustainable life style 
• Passive House and LEED Platinum adaptability 

You can see them, and his informative website here.

The homes are good-looking too, with styles ranging from a modern "Urban Pueblo" to Four-Square and Craftsman. I'm a huge fan of smaller homes, so I enjoyed checking out his Urban Bungalow. At only 1028 square feet, the floorplan has a very spacious feel. I think I would find a creative way to make the master walk-in closet function as a guest bedroom, maybe with a Murphy bed. Check it out and see if you agree.

Bruce Butler, designer of Sustainable Home Plans, received his Sustainable Homes Professional Certification in March 2009, through Earth Advantage Institute. This interactive six-month program helps participants develop the technical skills and knowledge required to design and build high performance homes.

His Sustainable House Plans are designed to give options towards energy efficient design. Each plan has a basic high performance energy envelope focused on Air Barrier, Vapor Retarder, Rain Barrier and a Thermal Barrier. Some options for increasing energy efficiency by changing the basic envelope are presented in the plans. Also, these green home plans can be taken beyond the measures outlined in the plans, for even higher energy performance, which might include Passive House design and renewable energy sources.

About the Author

Chris Mayou

Chris is the course manager for the Sustainable Homes Professional and Certified Residential Green Appraiser courses. She has over ten years’ experience as a residential custom home designer and co-owner of a small residential construction firm. She is a certified Sustainable Homes Professional and has designed more than twenty Earth Advantage and Energy Star certified homes. She was the safety coordinator and co-owner of a commercial roofing business for 15 years. Chris has a B.S. in Health Education from the University of Wisconsin--La Crosse.