If you’re building a new home, improving, adding to or renovating an old home, or simply looking to buy one, you might want to check into some of the eco-friendly building materials and construction methods now in use.

»Slideshow: Greening Your Home»Green Complete Coverage

Instead of sending sheetrock and old lumber to the dump, consider reusing it.

Imagine Homes, a green homebuilder in San Antonio puts sheetrock into a grinder and adds it to the soil, where it releases nutrients and improves soil structure.

»Slideshow: Greening Your Home»Green Complete Coverage

If you’re looking for new carpeting try some that has or can been recycled. Shaw Industries, a subsidary of Berkshire Hathaway, makes carpet from a certain nylon fiber that can be broken down and recycled and used to make another carpet.

»Slideshow: Greening Your Home»Green Complete Coverage

Spray foam insulation, like that pictured here in a home built by Green Builders Inc., seals off more drafts, contains no ozone-depleting substances and reduces humidity.

»Slideshow: Greening Your Home»Green Complete Coverage

Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, are chemicals emitted by paint and other products that can be harmful to the environment. Try using low-VOC paints, glues and stains on kitchen cabinets (as well as walls), which are used in this home built by Green Builders Inc.

»Slideshow: Greening Your Home»Green Complete Coverage

When it comes to flooring, bamboo is a greener substitute to wood. Unlike wood made from trees, bamboo—technically a grass—is a rapidly growing renewable resource.

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»Slideshow: Greening Your Home»Green Complete Coverage