Green building is quickly becoming standard practice. More and more homebuilders are taking steps to meet consumer demand for green homes by implementing building techniques that conserve land, energy, and resources. According to McGraw-Hill Construction, at least a third of builders will be heavily involved in green building by 2009, and almost 70% will be moderately involved. It’s no longer a question of whether green building will give homebuilders a competitive advantage; some builders will be left high and dry if they don’t transform their businesses and offer green options to consumers.
Several builders, big and small, are making a commitment to build green. The change is happening at varying degrees—a few have taken the lead and made green building their main focus, branding themselves as champions of green, while others are making incremental changes to attain higher levels of energy efficiency. Here’s a look at three homebuilders—Imagine Homes, Insight Homes, and KB Home—who have made a commitment to build green, higher performing homes.
Imagine Homes
This small San Antonio, TX homebuilder was founded in 2006 on “a commitment to responsible green building principles.” Just two years later, Imagine Homes earned the NAHB 2008 Green Building Award for Single-Family Production Home of the Year. They have achieved success by making green building central to their mission; they certify every home under two programs: Build San Antonio Green and EPA’s ENERGY STAR. Imagine Homes takes a building science approach—they use blower door and duct blaster testing, properly sized HVAC equipment, and advanced framing techniques. Their HERS Index range is 50-75. They also offer an extensive selection of green features, including spray foam insulation in the walls and closed attic system, MERV 10 high-efficiency whole-home filters, low VOC paints, high-efficiency dual flush toilets, and tankless water heaters. In fact, Imagine Homes is so confident of their offering that they invite customers to shop around using a Green Builder Checklist to compare how their homes stack up against other builders’ homes in terms of cost and selection.
Insight Homes
Owner Rob Lisle started Delaware-based Insight Homes in August 2007 after refining a high performance home strategy under a separate company, 36 Builders. Founded with an entrepreneurial spirit and a commitment to high performance, Insight Homes strives to push their product to higher levels of energy efficiency, using the latest technologies and technical strategies. All of Insight’s houses are certified under the ALA Health House program, achieve a HERS index of 56-60, have a total duct tightness less than 3% of system airflow, and routinely achieve whole-house airtightness measurements of 1200-1600 CFM 50. They are working to optimize their integrated heating, cooling, ventilation, and dehumidification system, and to continually improve their panelized framing system.
KB Home
KB Home has raised the bar for the big builder. One of the top five largest builders in the U.S., KB Home published its first sustainability report in 2008, outlining the steps they’re taking to accomplish their goal of becoming a leading green homebuilder. It identifies their successes, challenges, and future actions, including the companywide standard that all homes will be built to ENERGY STAR requirements beginning in 2009. In 2007, KB Home launched My Home. My Earth.™, a strategic environmental initiative that looks for ways to create systemic change throughout the organization. Through this initiative, KB Home’s customers can customize their homes, choosing from a vast selection of sustainable, energy-efficient features.
KB Home reduces their environmental impact by recycling waste produced from construction activities; for instance, they recycle sheetrock, which is composed of limestone, as fertilizer for landscaping. A few divisions use materials made of recycled content, such as cellulose insulation and engineered trim and finger-jointed studs created from recycled lumber. They use building materials more efficiently to eliminate waste and reduce costs—many homes contain customized, pre-constructed panels, I-joists, and pre-engineered roof trusses. In addition, the architecture and purchasing teams focus on reducing resource use through value engineering and more precise estimates of how many materials are needed for construction. KB Home has also developed S.M.A.R.T. Housing (Safe, Mixed-income, Accessible, Reasonably-prices, and Transit-oriented), infill communities in urban centers and brownfield sites, and communities where great attention was given to preserving the natural habitat.
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