I cringe whenever I hear someone boast about how “green” their 5,000-plus-square-foot home is. I say your home can’t be environmentally friendly when it gobbles up that so much space, and when it requires so much raw material to build.

The staff at Motley Fool — the famous financial self-help Web site — agree with me. You can read their thoughts on big houses here.

The Fools point out several disadvantages to big houses. The first is the one I’ve long been harping on: Larger homes are not environmentally friendly.  They use more supplies to build and consume more energy and heat.

The other reasons are also interesting. For instance, the writers at the Fool say that homes that are too big have a negative impact on family togetherness. It’s too easy for family members to disappear into their own individual spaces. Another problem? Homes that are too big cost too much. This has led many families into financial hardship when those mortgage payments become too large to handle.

My family and I live in a small home. Sure, sometimes I feel as if the four of us — plus one dog — are climbing all over each other. But a small house is easy to clean and maintain, and does foster a sense of togetherness. I also know that I’ve not trampled upon the environment by ripping our small house down to replace it with one three times its size.

So remember, bigger is definitely not always better when it comes to  homes.

But what do you think? Are there hidden advantages to living in a McMansion that I’m ignoring? Or are you, too, a fan of the small home? Let me know.

Those buying custom homes have been known to crave extra space: They want libraries, media rooms, home theaters and sprawling game rooms.

Apparently, though, this is changing, at least a bit. A new report from the American Institute of Architects found that the buyers of custom homes are now more interested in energy-saving “green” features such as extra insulation, tankless water heaters and sustainable flooring than they are in extra rooms.

For example, the architets reported that 68 percent of the survey respondents were interested in extra insulation in their attics.

The “green” building trend has certainly taken off. I just hope that these buyers of custom homes also recognize that building a 6,000-square-foot house — no matter how many bamboo floors it is — really isn’t all that “green.”

I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating: You can’t really call a home environmentally friendly if it’s the size of a small country.

Homebuilders today are latching onto the green-building trend. Everyone wants to claim that they build homes that are models of sustainable, earth-friendly living. Well, some builders are actually doing that, building actual green homes. Others? They’re building mansions and slapping the environmentally friendly tag on them.

There’s nothing wrong with mansions, I suppose. But have the guts to call a 6,000-square-foot-plus home exactly what it is: Big, and not really green.

I was reminded of all this when I read my local weekly paper. There, on the front page, was a headline trumping the area’s newest “green” home. I flipped to the story, and here’s what I saw: This “earth-friendly” home actually totaled 15,000 square feet of living space. Yes, 15,000. I don’t care how many geo-thermal units or solar panels you stick on a property, you can’t call a 15,000-square-foot home environmentally friendly. It’s just too large, too gaudy and too frivolous.

Yes, frivolous. Nobody needs to live in a 15,000-square-foot home.

This “green” home also included a massive home theater. Think all that theater equipment that had to be trucked in is good for the environment?

I’m not a perfect environmentalist. I’m often tempted to use paper plates to avoid having to wash dishes. I have been known to leave my computer on all night. But I’m also not a phony. And I’d never call my 15,000-square-foot home — complete with four bathrooms (Do you ever need four bathrooms?) — an example of environmentally friendly construction.

Again, build your giant homes if you want. But don’t pretend that you’re an environmentalist while doing it.

Earlier this year, the National Association of Home Builders introduced its Certified Green Professional designation. Since that time, the trade group — the largest for home builders — has certified more than 1,000 builders, remodelers and other home-building professionals as green builders.

Certified Green Professionals must take 24 hours of classroom training, have two years of professional experience and sign an ethics pledge, all while agreeing to adhere to environmentally friendly construction methods, to earn the designation.

This looks like good news for the building industry and for homeowners who want to be friendly to the environment. But I’ve seen far too many “green” houses that are anything but friendly to the environment. Here’s an example: I once interviewed a builder who proudly boasted that the new home he built for his clients sported geothermal heating, bamboo floors and solar panels. It was green as a home could be, he said.

Problem is, the home covered more than 5,500 square feet of living space. And to build it, the owners first purchased a perfectly nice 2,500-square-foot home that they paid to have demolished. Is that green? Is it environmentally friendly to rip down an existing home — one that had no real problems except that it wasn’t as modern or large as its buyers wanted — and then build a mansion? Even if you rely on locally produced lumber, I don’t see this as being especially kind to Mother Earth.

So while I applaud builders for incorporating green construction methods into their projects, let’s not kid ourselves about what environmentally friendly really means.

For years, the size of the average U.S. house has grown. But a story by Stephen Gandel on CNNMoney.com, which you can read here, says that a combination of rising fuel costs, an aging population and a growing environmental movement may result in the opposite: Our average homes may soon be getting smaller.

According to the story, the average house checked in at slightly more than 1,600 square feet in the late 1970s. That has risen to nearly 2,300 square feet today.

The CNNMoney.com story, though, posts several reasons why this may change. Baby Boomers are getting older. Their children are moving out on their own, so they don’t need as much living space. Rising fuel costs may encourage smaller homes; It takes a lot of fuel to heat those king-sized mansions.

And don’t discount the movement toward green, environmentally-friendly building. It’s hard to call a home “green” when it covers 3,000 or more square feet of living space, no matter how many energy-efficient appliances it boasts.

Personally, I find the movement toward small homes refreshing. My family and I — which just this week grew by one member, by the way — are quite happy living in a small house, one that includes about 2,100 square feet. There are only four of us, plus one dog. We have more than enough space.

What about you? Do you live in a large home? If so, are there rooms you rarely, if ever, use? If you live in a small home, do you want more living space? Could you use that extra bedroom or den? Or are you satisifed with the size of your house? Let me know. I’d be happy to hear from you.

I’ve interviewed lots of developers over the years who’ve proudly declared their homes to be green, that is, environmentally friendly. They tout the home’s EnergyStar-rated appliances, its geothermal heating pumps, its low-VOC paints and carpeting, its bamboo floors and the fact that its construction materials were only shipped from local suppliers.

That’s all good. But these developers never question the fact that their new homes, many of which include more than 6,000 square feet of living space, might be too large to be truly called green. After all, doesn’t building a mansion automatically leave a big impact on the environment?

There was an interesting story about this recently in the New York Times. Writer Lisa Prevost highlighted a model home in a North Stamford, Conn., subdivision called Windermere on the Lake. The home includes 7,000 square feet of living space. Its developers say it’s also a green home, despite its five bedrooms, four bathrooms, wine cellar and home theater. You can read about it here.

To be honest, I don’t buy it. A green home can’t be 7,000 square feet. And really, anytime you build a new home, can you really say you’re doing anything environmentally friendly? What if you’re tearing down an existing home to build this new green model? Wouldn’t it have been better for the environment to simply leave the existing home standing?

I think the term “green home” is tossed around too much these days. It certainly is trendy. But if your home has five bedrooms, four bathrooms and a wine cellar, and if it boasts 7,000 or more square feet? I hate to tell you, but it’s not environmentally friendly, no matter how many solar panels you’ve stuck on its roof.

What do you think? Can a giant house be a green one?

The New American Home celebrated its 25th anniversary at the International Builders Show in Orlando earlier this month. The home, for the last 25 years, has acted as a showcase for the latest homebuilding innovations. Think of it as a test kitchen, for builders: Developers are supposed to study the New American Home and then incorporate its innovations in their own homebuilding plans.

This year, the National Association of Home Builders is making a big deal out of the fact that this year’s New American Home has been built to the standards of the association’s National Green Building Program. This means that the home uses environmentally friendly building materials, energy-efficient appliances, highly effective insulation and other energy-saving innovations.

But … the home is 6,725 square feet. Maybe I’m missing something here, but how can any house that large really be called green? The home even contains a club room with theater-quality entertainment. That’s green?

I don’t mean to pick on the New American Home. It’s designed as a show house, so it’s not necessarily a realistic residence. But I’ve seen many instances where builders proudly declare the home they’re building to be green, even though these residences include a whopping 5,000 or 6,000 square feet of living space. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, or maybe I expect too much out of green building, but to me, green doesn’t mean you can build the largest house possible as long as it has Energy Star-rated windows.

And don’t try to tell me that today’s homebuyers need that space to accommodate their busy lives. Today’s spoiled homeowners might think they need it. But who really needs 6,000-square-feet of living space?

What’s greener: A modest 1,800-square-foot house that doesn’t have a geothermal heat pump or a 6,000-square-foot one that does?

For me, it’s the 2,000-square-foot house any day.

Green buiding — building homes and commercial buildings so as to have as little impact as possible on the environment — is more and more becoming part of the mainstream. Contractors are routinely relying on double-pane windows, Energy Star-rated appliances and paints with low-VOC counts. They’re hauling less waste to the dump every day, and relying more often on locally produced products when building their homes and retail centers.

But a new building in Oakland shows the true purpose of green construction: It’s not only good for the Earth, but for the residents inside the building, too.

You can read about Crossroads, which is perhaps the nation’s first green homeless shelter built from scratch, here, in a story by the New York Times’ Carol Pogash. Crossroads, which can house 125 residents, features a solar-paneled roof, nontoxic paint, desks and bureaus made from pressed wheat and hydronic heating systems.

The hero of this story is Wendy Jackson, executive director of the East Oakland Community Project. She spent 10 years raising money and drumming up support to build Crossroads, an $11-million facility. Her theory: Green building, and all its benefits, shouldn’t be out of reach to the homeless. They, too, deserved to live in a state-of-the-art, healthy building.

I only hope this is a new trend. Green building is growing in popularity not just because it’s a “hot” thing to do, but because it makes sense. Green-built homes are of high quality, and promote healthy living. Why shouldn’t the homeless deserve these same benefits?

When it comes to green building, I always ask one question: Does building environmentally friendly residences and commercial properties bring any benefits to developers and builders?

There’s more evidence than ever suggesting that yes, it does.

The latest bit of proof came in the form of a tip by fellow blogger Alison Kriscenski at the the environmental blog Greenerassets.com. She sent me a story from the Web site GreenerBuildings that says energy efficient buildings command higher occupancy and rental rates. At the same time, the story says, sales prices came in as much as 30 percent higher per square foot.

You can read the whole story here.

I’m always glad to read stories like this. I’ve always felt that green building will never truly take off unless developers and builders recognize some financial incentive for building energy efficient homes, office buildings and retail centers. Reports like the one on GreenerBuildings, offer more evidence that building green can, indeed, help developers boost their profits.

We might like to think that developers and builders would go green out of the goodness of their hearts, but we all know that’s not the case. If building environmentally friendly homes and commercial properties didn’t make economic sense, there’d always be only a small number of builders and developers who’d commit to green construction methods.

A 711-acre redevelopment of an old municipal airport in Austin, Texas, ranks as the top green housing development by Natural Home magazine.

The magazine in its Jan./Feb. issue ranked 10 housing developments. The Mueller development — which will turn a former city airport in Austin into a residential development featuring homes, businesses, parks and a school — took home the top spot. You can see why here, at the development’s official Web site.

The project features several green options for new homes, including tankless water heaters, programmable thermostats and solar panels. Developers will re-use the former airport’s hangars by transforming them into information centers and, possibly, entertainment venues. The project will also reserve 25 percent of all housing for lower-income owners or renters.

It’s this last point that I like best. It’s great that green building has become far more of a mainstream concept. Unfortunately, green-built residences are far too expensive for even homeowners with moderate incomes. Developers need to build green homes for people who aren’t rich – some, fortunately, are, but more need to follow — before green construction truly becomes mainstream.