Green Home...almost

I have been viewing some houses over the last 2 weekends as I am hoping to get my own house this year.

Basically there were nothing much that interest me, 1 that was well renovated is beyond my budget and not near to the public transport but over the last weekend, I saw one that is pretty much rundown. I am not even sure if the pillars can still hold up the house to be honest.

And in order to decide whether I want the house, the agent brought a contractor along yesterday to see how much the renovation will cost. And that's why this entry is in this blog, I told the contractor I wanted water tanks in the front yard and the backyard to harvest rainwater. On top of that as the existing parquet flooring needs to be changed, it gave me a chance to suggest a switch to bamboo flooring and best of all, the contractor told me that bamboo flooring is cheaper than putting on those new parquet. Cool. I also spoke about using low VOC paints for repainting the house although I know it is a dream because I have not come across any low VOC paints here and even when I spoke about it to the contractor, he was like "Err, what's that?". So to be green here at home? I think we still have a long way to go.

The other design I spoke about with the contractor was opening up the back so that the living room and dry kitchen will be open concept and cross ventilation will happened. Ceilings fans for al the rooms were also suggested and hopefuly LED lightings can replaced all the lightings with bulb. I think it will kill some people when I tell them I want to tear down the air-conditioning units as landed property tended to be very hot but this unit is pretty windy. Downside is not much sun get shone onto the yards so it seems impossible to install solar panels since they won't work for me.

However the initial quote from the contractor is high and I perceive it will continue to be high after the costing is finalized. So together with the cost of the house, it may simply be unaffordable to me.

Watch this space!