Homebuilding transforms the land extensively. During development, the land is cleared of trees and ground cover, affecting water, wildlife, and drainage patterns. To build a home that complements rather than competes with the surrounding environment, it’s important to consider the site’s natural features and constraints. This benefits the homeowner by providing beautiful views, potential for more outdoor living, a welcoming and protected home site, comfortable indoor and outdoor spaces, and lower energy and water costs. As a builder, you can provide a more environmentally friendly home, while saving time and money in areas such as excavation, landscaping, and infrastructure development.

Once the land has been chosen, you’ll need to analyze the site’s particular characteristics to design and orient the home appropriately. Here are four key aspects of the environment that you should consider.

1. Climate
Several climatic conditions can be used to your advantage in designing and placing a home on a site: solar access; air movement patterns; average temperature and rainfall; microclimate factors, such as snow and wind load; and whether the site is in a predominantly heating or predominantly cooling region.

In mild climates, it makes sense to design outdoor rooms, patios, and decks into the home to encourage homeowners to use outdoor spaces and possibly reduce the amount of indoor square footage that needs to be constructed, then heated and cooled. Homeowners also can benefit from the psychological effects of being outdoors. Other green building practices, such as passive solar heating, daylighting, and natural cooling from operable windows and channeled breezes, can be incorporated cost-effectively into most homes.

2. Natural Landscape
A site’s natural landscape is an important consideration in home placement. Topographical features such as rocks, trees and hills influence drainage and air movement. When building on steep slopes, it’s difficult to avoid soil erosion, loss of hillside vegetation, growth of invasive exotic vegetation, and damage to nearby waterways such as lakes and streams. In addition, finding a flat area for the home will be less expensive than building on a slope. Positioning the home to keep service lines and roads as short as possible will reduce infrastructure costs and leave the most pristine areas of the site untouched.

Also consider locating the home in view of natural landscaping—rocks, trees, or hills. This can make a home feel welcoming and sheltered, which may encourage homeowners to use outdoor living spaces and reduce their square footage requirement.

3. Water
Study the site to understand the groundwater and surface runoff characteristics.  If you design the home’s landscaping to absorb storm water, expensive storm sewers won’t be necessary to carry rainwater offsite. To reduce or eliminate the need for additional landscape watering, select drought-resistant native plants and perennial groundcovers. When landscape watering is necessary, consider the site’s natural water availability—the average annual precipitation—and use rooftop water catchments to collect for outdoor watering.

4. Existing vegetation
Consider carefully the site’s existing vegetation and use it to the home’s advantage. Are there any natural clusters of trees that could be used for summer shading assistance? Or any natural shrub formations that could help channel cool summer breezes into the home and block cold winter winds?

When necessary, consider relocating existing trees and other native vegetation to create these effects. For example, adding trees on the east and west sides of the home can help shade the home from early morning and late-day direct sun, dramatically reducing cooling loads. Creating hedge rows by relocating native plants can help block and channel airflow toward the home as desired. Furthermore, relocating existing vegetation will save on the cost for new landscaping plants, and it will require little or no watering. Be sensitive to any existing vegetation that is endangered, and treat it accordingly.

More Best Practices® for house placement can be found in BuildIQ University’s online training course, House Placement & Excavation.