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A Green Company
About Green Building

About Green Building
Think Responsibly,               Build Creatively,               Live Healthy

 Your home is probably the biggest investment you will ever make, shouldn't it also be one of the healthiest and most efficient investments as well?  Green Building is all about these things.
 
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Green Building is all about making use of the natural resources we have been given to make our homes healthier, more efficient and more environmentally friendly. 

 

Using natural resources can mean anything from conserving water to building your house out of straw bales.  The most important thing is too make sure you use them properly.  In Green Building we stress the use of better quality natural materials, which are not only better for the environment, but also for you.  Often Green Building is still seen as a crazy or expensive idea, but it isn't neccessary to spend a lot of money or stop using plastic or other man made items to be green.  Going green can be as simple as installing a soy based insulation in your walls when you build instead of using a more synthetic material.  Green Building may even save you money on your next home improvement or construction project.  Collecting rainwater for use in your garden or lawn or installing solar shingles to generate electricity for your home, can not only make your lives better, but can save you money on you next utility bills or even eliminate them entirely.  While not everybody can go totally green there are things that each of us can do to help make our environments more healthy and energy efficient for everyone and everything and that is what going green is all about.

Building Green
Building Green is a way of building that involves sustainable resources, such as straw or younger growth timber; recycling materials or eliminating excess waste from a jobsite; making things more efficient, such as making better use of your time on the jobsite or installing a windmill to take advantage of the wind's power to generate electricity for your home; and using materials that make your home more natural or healthier, such as mold resistant drywall or energy recovery ventilators (ERV's).  All of these things can not only make your next project or jobsite cleaner and healthier, but can also make it more efficient and save you money even.  Building Green is a way of life, not just a new building technique.

 

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August 27

New Services, Changes & Updates This Month
Over the past month several new changes and updates have been made to Homes With Character's website and products.  Below is a list of many of the different updates, changes and new services that have been added in the past month.  To see more of these updates and changes visit here.
 
New Services
We now offer a new service called Customer Reviews for our customers to leave reviews of the products they buy.  Any product or service is eligible for customer review through this new service.  Another new service that was just added this month is the Homes With Character Advertisements Newsletter.  This newsletter is a great new way to keep up to date on changes to the site and new products or offers.  To sign up for this service visit our site here.  Another new way to keep up with some of the changes going on at Homes With Character is WebSlices, a new service offered for Internet Explorer 8.  Once Internet Explorer 8 becomes widely available this service will allow you to subscribe to certain sections on our website to get up to the second details on updates or changes right in your browser.  This service is similar to RSS feeds which many of you might be familiar with, but is far more simple, quick and easy to view.  A new monthly ad is also available again in the ads and brochures section of our site.
 
New Changes
Kid's Center, formerly known as More Power is now the place to go to get your kids interested in home improvement or just for adults to have some fun with home improvement.  There are games, jokes, projects and more in the Kid's Center for adults and kid's alike to enjoy.  And if you need any more invitation just ask the crazy contractor.  To check out the new changes go here.
 
Updates
Two new updates have been made to make our plans even better.  The first is an update to the Custom Plans section.  Now custom sizing and minor alterations are included for furniture plans allowing you, the customer, to customize each plan to fit your individual needs for a small price.  Also added are mirror (reverse) plans to flip a house plan over and custom room alterations allowing size changes and other small alterations to be made for a nominal price on all green home plans.  To see a more detailed review of these new changes to Custom Plans visit our site here.  The second update is a new reformed single user license.  The new license has to be downloaded at the end of the checkout process, filled out and emailed back to Homes With Character.  The license is in PDF format and may not be altered.  A copy of the signed license and a blank license will be shipped with the plans cd.  Without signing the license and returning it your plan order will be canceled and refunded to you.  Any products other than plans purchased with the same order will be shipped regardless of the license signing.  Each person using the plans as specified in the license must also sign and return a copy of the signed license to Homes With Character.  A generic version of the new license (not to be used as an official Homes With Character Single User License Agreement) is available for viewing here.


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July 10

New eBooks For Sale
The Comfort Food Cookbook eBook and Unique Comfort Food Cookbook eBook are now for sale in the DIY Store at Homes With Character.net.  Each book includes easy step by step recipes for 25 different meals.  Check them out today for only $0.99 each.


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Site Upgrades
Recently several upgrades were made to the site including customer reviews and ratings.  You can check them out here.


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June 10

Green Home 2008 Update
All voting in the HWC Green Home 2008 feature polls has ended.  Thanks to everyone who voted.  You have helped us choose many of the features in this years HWC Green Home.  The final features were decided this past weekend.  Thanks to a 4 way tie on the HWC Green Home Luxury Feature poll the final luxury feature choice will be a surprise shown in the final project.  For more information on what features were chosen or just more information on the HWC Green Home 2008 visit our website.


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June 04

New Site Features Added!
You can now shop our Furniture Plan gallery by price anytime you want.  We offer furniture plans ranging from $1.95 - $12.95 for sale.  Also added is a a new Product Comparison button and page which you can now use to compare our plans to our top competetors.  Also new is our Gift Center to help you find just that right gift.
 
Many new plans have been added, check them out on our site.
 
If you haven't had your say already visit Green Home 2008 Voting today to choose the final two features for the Green Home 2008.


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Efficient Building
Making better use of your time and materials on the jobsite not only can get the project done faster and cheaper for the client, but it can make your company better and maybe even get you more money.  Efficiency means simply to not waste what you have.  Maybe you get a big snowstorm so you can't finish siding the building, why not take advantage of that time to work on the inside.  Maybe you can start installing the mechanicals or electric or plumbing or maybe flooring.  By making a use of the time you have to get more work done, not only are you helping out the client, but you will also be helping out yourself.  The sooner you can get done, the sooner you maybe able to start a new project or devote more time to one you already have.  Many people do not take advantage of this time, they look at as a loss of time and money, but it doesn't have to be.  Secondly, schedule your projects better, make sure that the subcontractors aren't tripping over each other on the schedule and that you have time set aside to get the entire project finished, before the client needs to have it done.  Also make sure your schedule is flexible enough that it will allow for delays or unforeseen setbacks in the construction, don't make it so tight that if you don't get a material shipment on time, that it slows everything down or completely shutsdown the construction site.  Always make sure you are doing something that can be done to keep the jobsite moving, otherwise you can end up with a lot of extra headaches that don't need to occur.