At Las Casas Verdes our goal is to provide a custom home, employing the highest green home standards to minimize your utility bills.
Energy Efficiency at Las Casas Verdes
It’s easy to forget about the small things that can help your green home be energy efficient. Just a simple toilet flush doesn’t seem like that big a deal, but when a family of four flushes a toilet four times a day, the water usage quickly adds up.
An average family of four uses around 1,000 gallons of water a month. Add to that the amount used for watering the grass and landscaping and your water usage could be well over 4,000 gallons a month.
That’s a lot of money a homeowner spends on just these two particular items. Think how that money could be spent on other more important things!
In addition… the utility rates for water and waste-water will only increase in years to come, but the rain is free! Rainwater is low in salts and good for landscape plants and capturing rainwater reduces erosion! Rainwater capture provides an excellent source of secondary and alternative sources of water.
Every Las Casas Verdes home comes with a rainwater harvesting system. Having a 2,000 gallon rainwater collection tank can seriously help save money on your water and waste-water utility bills.
You might ask yourself how does rainwater harvesting save on waste-water bills?
The city calculates the waste-water fees based on the assumption that any water coming through the water meter into a home is also the amount of water being flushed out of the home. But since the rain water captured never travels through the city’s water meter it is neither counted as incoming water, nor as outgoing waste-water! Its Free Water! Cool huh?
Water consumption for bathing, drinking and washing will still be coming through the meter from the city’s treated water supply, so there will be some expense, but at least there will be savings too!
We have filled our tank in just 2 rains, storing enough water to flush toilets and water landscaping for almost an entire month (and perhaps more) without additional rainfall.
Another question one might ask is what happens if there is not enough rain to keep water in the tank? Not to worry, as our one of a kind system approved by the City of Austin automatically fills the tank to a level of one foot with city water when the water level in the tank drops below a certain level.
When all 20 homes are built, the Las Casas Verdes subdivision could save one million gallons of water (and maybe more) each year. That contributes to Austin’s water savings in a pretty amazing way.
Imagine, if more homes were harvesting rainwater then demand on our city’s water treatment plants could be reduced and the need to spend tax dollars on new treatment plants would be minimized.
Would you like to find out more about the other energy efficient features we employ at Las Casas Verdes? We are really excited about what we are achieving with our homes and would love for you to visit our model so that you can see for yourself! Call us today!
Lorin Martin, Agent and REALTOR, Shelton Properties
512-289-6119
Jeffrey Dochen, Broker and REALTOR, Shelton Properties
512-328-2500
I can’t wait to see these and hear more about them, I hear you guys have been getting great traffic!
Great tour of the home. Such simple measures, rain water usage, site placement, air flow, landscaping all can make such a huge difference in a homes energy efficiency, and the Texas craftsman style is a perfect fit for the mtal roof, porches, overhangs and balconies.
I found out today that the builder, David Martin, also captures the condensation from the air conditioning system, which he estimates produces about six gallons a day. The AC system removes humidity from the air within the home and this water is also collected into the 2,000 gallon rainwater collection system.
The rainwater collection system is something that many of my buyers have on their lists of wants. The system with the Las Casas Verdes homes is very impressive.