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Cyndia Zwahlen reports

When Steve Kawell of Durango decided to build a home for himself, he chose to build green with an energy efficient design that included passive solar heat and sustainable materials. It is a decision more Coloradoans are making each year as energy costs soar, concerns over indoor air quality grow, and new eco-friendly home products and technologies make it easier than ever to save money while helping the environment. Built green can also mean built better.

"Instead of living in a cold, drafty, dark box, you are in this warm, wonderfully lit, bright living space," says Kawell of his adobe home atop a picturesque mesa. "It adds to your quality of life."

It also can add to the bottom line. While upfront costs for a new green home may be up to eight percent higher than the average price, owners can often recoup those costs within the first five years and look forward to years of savings. Kawell, the green building specialist at Four Corners Construction Management of Durango, (970) 259-7207, which won the 2005 Built Green Builder of the Year award for its Copperhead Camp residences, notes that his home is 30 to 50 percent more efficient than a standard one of the same size. With annual fuel price hikes in the double digits, energy efficiency is a large factor in the growing interest in green building. New federal tax credits and state utility rebates are also expected to drive up demand for efficient homes.

Built Green Colorado, the home building industry's program that certifies new green homes, gave its Built Green stamp to 4,771 homes statewide last year, an 84 percent increase from the number certified just five years ago. There are now 29,947 Built Green-certified houses in Colorado and more than 100 green builders listed on the organization's website, builtgreen.org. From a straw-bale house in Durango to a glittering Old World-style mansion in Denver's Cherry Hills neighborhood, Coloradoans have an array of choices when it comes to buying and building green.

What makes a house green? Energy efficiency is the biggest factor. Indoor air quality and renewable and sustainable materials and processes, used indoors and out, also play key roles. To meet the growing interest in green building, there has been a surge in new products and technologies, such as roof tiles with photovoltaic cells built into them, high-tech evaporative coolers and stylish paints, carpets, cabinets and furniture that emit very low levels of pollution-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These materials have made it easier for homeowners and home builders to go green.

"Seven or eight years ago, if you wanted to build cabinets with formaldehyde-free plywood, they had to be custom," says Tom D. Gorton, principal of Tom D. Gorton Construction Inc. of Durango, (970) 259-9133, which won the 2005 Built Green Home of the Year Over $500,001 award for its Villa Ladera model. "Today," he adds, "you can buy them at Home Depot."

Of course, green products alone do not a green house make, experts caution.

"If you do not install environmentally friendly products correctly, you will have a disaster," says Greg Follet of Fish Builders of Colorado, (719) 539-7099, a Salida-based custom home builder and member of the Built Green Colorado Hall of Fame.

For example, adding a highly energy-efficient furnace to a poorly insulated house can mean pumping more hot air into the outdoors, faster.

To help avoid such pitfalls, CH&L asked a handful of builders how to do it right, from initial construction decisions to simple steps any homeowner might consider to increase the efficiency and comfort of a home, new or old.