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Residential homes that are designed and built in accordance with the green building construction principles are known as eco-friendly homes. While builders and even designers will always seem to have different definitions of what should constitute an eco-home, usually, the homes are constructed in ways that try to improve the efficacy of natural resources such as energy, water, heat, and minerals to mention but a few.

Additionally, eco-friendly homes are normally built with the aim of reducing environmental waste, minimizing pollution, and reducing negative effects on human health. Because eco-friendly homes fall in the large category of green building or sustainable architecture, sometimes they can be termed as eco-houses or green homes.

Characteristically, green homes are built with the philosophy of sustainable design on focus. The philosophy aims at building up homes that are at par with their natural surroundings. As such, the sustainable design principles used in eco building advocate for the use of low-impact construction materials which need a low amount of energy. Such materials can be produced in a very sustainable manner or better still be made of recycled goods.

Additionally, in order to reduce the impact that can be brought about by replacement, eco-houses are often designed and built using superior-quality materials that are made in a sustainable manner to last for a very long time. A major goal of eco-friendly home building is reducing the consumption of natural resources as much as possible so that further depletion will not occur. This goal is normally achieved by designing and building homes that mainly capitalize on the use of renewable resources.

For instance, you will find majority of eco-friendly homes using solar technologies whereby power will be derived from sun- a natural resource. The heating system inside an eco-home can be powered using the same resource – the sun by building the homes using glass windows inside the house as solar energy trappers or collectors that will trap and collect the sun rays. Note also that solar energy can be used to produce electricity.

Additionally, eco building advocates using vegetation regularly to reduce the rate of pollution and in turn increase the efficiency of energy. This explains the reason why it is very common to see green roofs and rain gardens on many eco homes today. Rain gardens can simply be described as planted depressions that will make stormwater runoff from the driveways, roofs, and walkways and soak in the ground rather than go into the storm drains. Talking of green roofing, trees and plants will be planted on the whole or part of the roof so that they will absorb rainwater and in turn reduce heat reflection.

Many countries today are adopting green building standards for all designers and builders of eco-friendly homes. Mexico, Canada and the US have adopted some kind of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. New Zealand practices the Green Star NZ system, South Africa practices the Green Star SA green building rating system and countries such as Japan and China, among many others have also adopted and implemented some form of national rating systems for green building.