Whether you’re building a house from the ground up, or are planning to buy a house on the market, there are several green ideas you can consider while you’re in the process of securing home loans that are not only good for the planet, but also for your pocket book. Here’s a short list of suggestions:

• Have a windmill installed. These run about $4,500 installed for one of the smaller ones, but it will cut your energy costs significantly, easily paying for itself in just a few short years. You have a rare opportunity to be one of the first to have a windmill put up on your property. Make sure to take advantage of all of the tax credits available to you.

• Consider heating your home with geothermal energy. This technology has been around a few years, but it’s been steadily improving. Basically, with a geothermic system, you heat and cool your house with dirt.  Obviously, this reduces the heating bill dramatically.

• Have a rain collection barrel or water feature installed. Rain water can be used for just about anything city water can, except for drinking. And if you don’t want an unsightly barrel by the side of your house, you can have attractive water feature installed instead and still recycle the rain water for use in the garden and the yard.

• Consider adding a water feature to your yard, such as a small pond, a perpetual waterfall, or a water garden. Even a small water feature provides much needed habitat for birds and other animals. Best of all, if you’re quiet, you can sit and watch them splash in the water for hours.

• Install solar panels. Better yet, install the newer, considerably more efficient solar rods. This is just one more way you can both cut your energy costs and help protect the planet at the same time.

The costs of some of these suggestions might seem a bit prohibitive, but if you include the improvement and its cost in the home loans, it really doesn’t affect your mortgage payments all that much. And if you jump on these projects quickly, much of the cost can be defrayed through government programs designed to offer incentives to those who choose to use green technology for their home.

Photo via Jesse Wagstaff