Memorial Day commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. It’s also the official beginning of the summer barbecue season. Enjoy!
The Real Story will return next week with a series on edible landscaping.
It’s interesting that even people who aren’t interested in a “green” home seem to be interested in a “healthy” home. When KB Home designed and built its Net Zero Concept Home, products that promoted a healthier living environment were key. You can download the webinar called “The Quest for a Net Zero and LEED Platinum Home”, at www.greenexpo365.com/kbwebinar/index.html.
With so many solutions in place from the technology and building sciences consultants, the Martha Stewart team took on the task of making the home feel appealing and enhance its healthy attributes. Low VOC (volatile organic compound) paints and carpeting prevent “off-gassing” into the home’s environment. The extensive use of hard surfaces, both on the floors and in the kitchen, enhanced the cleanliness of the home. The Martha Stewart team showed tiled floors with area rugs, often in recycled materials, as a way to promote a healthier home.
Perhaps among the surprises in “The Quest for a Net Zero and LEED Platinum Home” webinar was that most of the products used inside and outside the home were purchased from the traditional builder materials sources and not special green boutiques, keeping purchasing prices in line with expectations for a production home. Both Jacob Atalla from KB Home and Boyce Thompson from Builder Magazine expressed hope that the leading manufacturers continue to create more products and green solutions, to offer builders more choices.
The first round of must-haves for the home included low-e windows and doors, effective insulation, an airtight, concrete block shell, energy-efficient HVAC, sealed ductwork and Energy Star qualified appliances—nothing too revolutionary there. Once KB rolled up its corporate sleeves, more specific changes came to the table, like sealing the attic with expanding foam, to achieve an R-21 rating and lessen the heat load. Although they specified a smaller HVAC system for energy savings, they added a whole-house humidification system and an energy recovery ventilator. Solar went from passive (cool roof tiles) to active status, with its hot water system. Sun tunnels (the new name for skylights) and high-efficiency propane fireplaces all came into the energy-efficiency equation.
As the KB team considered the extra savings that could come from the human factor, they added movable wireless light switches, equipped with radio technology, occupancy sensors to turn lights off and on, and an energy management system with real time data.
Our commentary on the webinar continues next week, so be sure to log on.
The Real Story recently participated in a Green Expo 365 webinar called “The Quest for a Net Zero and LEED Platinum Home”, which you can download at www.greenexpo365.com/kbwebinar/index.html.
Without sounding like a commercial for KB Home, I was impressed to see that its statistical record on sustainability makes it the Number One “green” builder in the country, with more than 60,000 Energy Star qualified homes built since 2000. The EPA has given the company an award for “Sustained Excellence”; Calvert Investments gave KB Home top honors in green building in two consecutive polls. Yet top management was looking for a higher level of commitment to sustainability, and decided to study sustainability at the lifestyle level, and not just the technical features. So they enlisted Martha Stewart to envision people living in the homes, using the high-tech features and incorporating greener lifestyle habits into the equation.
First and very important, they presented some market research that shows the Catch 22 for homebuilders when they look at green building: people say they want it, but few are willing to pay more for it. Interestingly, 95.28% of the people surveyed indicated “I want a home built with products to preserve indoor air environment”—not a home that is high in overall “green-ness”, and not built to save the planet. Indoor air quality seems to be one of the biggest emerging hot buttons among the consumers, who are worried about their children’s health AND that of their parents. Features that demonstrably improve indoor air quality ALONE look like they would be a driver of consumer interest; KB decided to go well beyond that.
Log on next week, as our commentary on this webinar continues.
The Real Story recently attended Green Expo 365 without ever leaving the office. Builder Magazine and KB Home participated in a webinar called “The Quest for a Net Zero and LEED Platinum Home”, which you can download at www.greenexpo365.com/kbwebinar/index.html. The webinar provides slides and narrative from Jacob Atalla, KB Home Senior Director of Sustainability Initiatives and Boyce Thompson from Builder Magazine, a Handley Wood publication
In case you want a spoiler in advance: they did it. KB’s green idea home, created with Martha Stewart and an army of energy, water and construction science consultants is a 2,600-square-foot, three-bedroom/two-bath home in Orlando, Florida, that has achieved both Net Zero status AND received LEED Platinum certification. KB will be monitoring the home for the next year, because some members of the consulting team have shared the opinion that the home may well use less energy than Net Zero standards require.
The link will be posted all month long with new commentary every week. There’s a lot of interesting material here, so log on and give a listen.
