This May, Bay Area residents will have the opportunity to visit a wide variety of successful residential green building projects.

On Sunday, May 1, from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., the Build It Green Home Tour will introduce attendees to residential green-built projects in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Tour goers will get the chance to visit with homeowners and builders who have built or remodeled green, and learn from their experiences choosing the right materials, the cost of building green, and deciding on the best green design for their home.

The Build It Green Home Tour encourages local residents building or remodeling this spring to go green. Many Truitt and White customers, including McCutcheon Construction, Canyon Construction, Cerami Builders and David Construction will have homes on the tour.

The tour is a great way to see green building products in use. A number of the homes on the tour have green materials purchased from Truitt and White, such as James Hardie fiber-cement siding, composite decking, Tyvek House Wrap, Johns Manville formaldehyde- free insulation, and low VOC paints. Truitt and White is pleased and honored to be a part of the construction process by providing builders on the tour with the best product on the market.

“In addition to supplying green building materials, we are also continually promoting green building through our numerous partnerships with organizations, such as Build It Green, NARI, the Green Remodelers Guild and the Green Resource Center,” says Judi Ettlinger, Truitt and White.

Green Building Fair

As part of the Build It Green Home Tour, Truitt and White will host the Green Building Fair at our yard on May 1 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Attendees can browse green building products, talk to the manufacturer representatives, gather information about programs from a variety of organizations including PG&E, the Green Resource Center and the City of Berkeley, enter a raffle, enjoy refreshments, and purchase copies of the tour book. “It’s a great way for tour goers to talk to the manufacturers who have products on the tour and learn more about how these products can help make a greener home,” says Judi. Tour books will also be available for purchase at Truitt and White beginning in early April.

Truitt and White is also participating in the Healthy Home and Garden Series by co-sponsoring green building workshops that encourage and teach homeowners the benefits of building green, from getting your feet wet to full-on greening of your home.

Workshops co-sponsored by and held at Truitt & White include Remodeling: One Green Room at a Time, on May 7, which looks at making a home more energy efficient; and Green Home Systems, May 14, which explores how your home and all its parts interact with each other and making them perform more effectively. The workshops will be held at Truitt and White.

Other workshops in the series include Green Building 101, April 28; Hiring and Working With Green Professionals, May 12; and Seven Steps to Building a New Green Home, May 21. Registration for workshops will open on March 1 at www.buildgreennow.org.

For more information on the one-day tour, Green Building Fair and upcoming workshops, visit www.buildgreennow.org.