Smart HomeOwner is the only magazine dedicated to helping specify-it-yourself homeowners and progressive building professionals create energy efficient, healthy, and eco-friendly homes.

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Our goal is to help everyone have a home that is more comfortable, costs less to maintain, uses less energy and requires less maintenance. Readers can turn to our print magazine, web site and special publications throughout the year to make that goal a reality.

Smart HomeOwner is your guide to creating, maintaining and affording your home. Each issue explores the essential systems and critical decisions that make your home better, safer and more enjoyable. Smart HomeOwner will inspire you with new ideas and empower you with the information you need for your home plans and projects. (Amazon.com)

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View Smart HomeOwner Magazine, July/August 2008

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FEATURES:
26 DESIGNER DECKS
The sky’s the limit when designing and outfitting today’s customized decks BY WILLIAM AND PATTI FELDMAN

32 GIVE YOUR YARD AN ORGANIC MAKEOVER
Using organic yard care techniques, you can create a lush landscape without chemicals BY DEBORAH R. HUSO

38 HIGH-PERFORMANCE PREFABS
Prefab homes from four manufacturers excel in innovative design and energy efficiency
BY SHERI KOONES

44 TAKING THE LEED
Three homes certified by the LEED rating system demonstrate the benefits of green, efficient building
BY BION D. HOWARD

50 ROOFS ON THE CUTTING EDGE
Reflective materials, improved insulation and integrated solar shingles are among the latest trends in residential roofing BY JIM HACKLER

Visit Smart HomeOwner Magazine Official Website

The latest information on innovative home products, systems and building practices for creating healthy, environmentally friendly and energy efficient homes.

From the Editor: The Tipping Point

Most homeowners today recognize the fact that, sometime in the just past few months, we reached a tipping point — a threshold when gathering pressures beyond our control forced us into a period of rapid change. It’s happening all over the world, and in our own homes. It’s happening to our neighbors, our families and ourselves.

It’s a communal event, and an individual one. And it’s causing us to abandon comfortable old routines and habits in search for new, more flexible ones.

Perhaps this tipping point came at the gas pump one afternoon when you realized you were dipping deeper into your wallet or purse, or that moment you arrived home from work and opened the most recent heating oil or natural gas bill, only to find it double (or triple) what you paid just a year or two ago.

Perhaps it’s a more dramatic moment, prompted by a wildfire in your neighborhood or a disastrous weather event in your town. Or maybe it was just a moment of lucidity and the sudden realization that we’ve lost some measure of control over our lives — and we have to figure out (quickly) how to regain at least some element of that control.

The good news is that we all can adopt new routines, patterns and practices that will help us regain some normality in our lives. Some of these changes will be easy, and others will be more difficult, and drastically different from what we are used to. But the bottom line is this: We can no longer ignore the need to change, to become more aware and more savvy, and to begin to implement practices and processes that will benefit us all in the months and years to come.

In this summer ’08 issue of Smart HomeOwner, we present you with simple ways to make necessary changes to your home and to your life. In particular, we focus on three major themes:

1. Disaster resistance
We’ve increased our coverage of this topic over the past few years, as events around the country and the world seem to demand action. This month, we detail ways to make your home more resistant to wildfires. Even as I write this, wildfires are sweeping through the state of Florida, destroying hundreds of homes.

In past issues, we have also described how to create more fortified homes, and how to take simple measures to protect your home before, during and after a disastrous weather event.

2.Water conservation
Simply put, our water resources are dwindling. While there’s no need to panic at the moment, there is a need to be more proactive in protecting the resources we have. Several articles in this issue, including contributing editor Charlie Popeck’s Smart Building Journal, provide practical advice for conserving water in your home.

3. Energy efficiency
Homeowners can take numerous measures to reduce energy usage and cut utility bills. Whether it’s installing a radiant roof barrier, investigating alternative-energy sources or even considering a low-energy prefab, homeowners have a wide range of options available to them. We will explore these issues in more detail in our annual Home Energy issue, coming up in September. But for now, we hope the practices and suggestions we offer in this summer issue serve as a guide and an inspiration to change, and that they end up saving you time and money as well.

Bob Feeman
Editor

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