Building Green Homes

Sandra Slater of Palo Alto holds weekly tours of her home, which is a fully sustainable, "green" building. Her family generates its own electricity and reuses water used for washing clothes and bathing to water the family garden. The Slater home was built with certified lumber, meaning that the wood came from a sustainably managed forest. Nationally, green building is becoming more popular — approximately 11,000 sustainable homes have been built in the U.S. Since the energy crisis, interest in sustainable housing has grown throughout California. In 2000, around 700 people toured Slater's home. Local custom-made homes can cost anywhere from $300 to $1000 per square foot but an increasing number of cities are providing rebates for green buildings.