Does This Green Retrofit Make My Butt Look Big?

No absolutely not, it makes your carbon footprint look small.
And when we look at the number of amazing individuals in this community that have come into INDIGOGreen over the last year, we know that it is true that more and more people are trying on some new "pants" for their homes (and their lives) if you will, and retrofiting them. People's remodeling add-ons are increasing while new home sales are declining. And people are not just remodeling, they are remodeling green.
According to the behemoth publishing firm McGraw-Hill Construction, GreenBuilding Focus summarizes that "the market for nonresidential green building retrofits is set to soar and represents a better opportunity for designers and builders than new construction".
Although the predicted numbers are for non-residential construction, we know that most home owners around here feel the same.
Although energy efficient upgrades were the main reason for retrofits, social and environmental factors were close behind with issues of worker productivity and healthier indoor spaces. And it is predicted that real estate values of green buildings will rise in comparison to their non-green brethern in the future competitive commercial and residential real estate markets.
And yet, we all still have a long way to go perhaps, in realizing the true benefits of building and remodeling sustainably, still a ways till we are hand in hand with energy efficiency while we re-callibrate our economic scales.
But it is as we like to say around here (paraphrasing), green building is just smarter building that is here to stay. Read more.