Home Green Home

St. Louis Commerce Magazine, Jul 01, 2006 by Beggs, Bill Jr

With scores of specs to consider, from the shingles to the sub-flooring and windows up, down and all around, building "green" can be daunting for even the most seasoned residential builder. And since each item on a green building checklist typically requires more of the "long green" to complete, builders must be adept at explaining features and benefits so that home buyers understand just what they're paying for, whether it's reducing energy costs for now or increasing resale value for later. A burgeoning regional green building initiative, derived from a program of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), was designed to offer builders information on products and practices developed to help build homes to a higher standard, in areas such as environmental friendliness and energy efficiency. Since last October's Gateway Builders Show and Conference, the Home Builders Association (HBA) of Greater St. Louis has been fine-tuning its residential green" building program.

But first they closely studied what had been set in motion at the national level by a stakeholder group of nearly 60 builders, environmentalists, government agencies and product manufacturers who'd helped develop the NAHB green building guidelines. Then a group of St. Louis area builders-nucleus of the region's Green Building Council-modified the guidelines to provide St. Louis builders with a tool kit for practical green building approaches applicable to St. Louis' geography and climate.

Matt Belcher of Belcher, Homes, who helped break ground for the local initiative and chairs the council, says going green is a win-win for builders and buyers. The latter generally don't want to be burdened with the details, which can be where the devil is for companies interested in becoming involved.

"The customers I'm building for don't know all that's involved in it, but they want the energy savings, the intrinsic health quality, the durability," says Belcher, "The cookie, the reward, is that you're not putting a strain on natural resources."

Owners of green homes can reap benefits including utility savings, improved indoor air quality and less overall maintenance. Builders can tailor the guidelines to the needs of a home buyer as the residence is designed and built, with an eye toward saving energy and reducing waste, both during and after construction.

Green Building Council protechnical and marketing expertise to help local builders utilize the national guidelines and support the construction of green homes across the region. To that end, says Caitlyn Peel, a vice president with the HBA, the association will be sponsoring green building sales training not only for builders, but for anyone else who needs to become acquainted with the concept, including realtors and estimators.

Meanwhile, the council has been growing like a weed, from its core group of six builders last fall to around 43 members by late May, expanding to include architects, lenders, insurance people and others with diverse roles and interests in the industry.

"We receive one or two applications every couple of days," Peet points out.

What's more, the organization has been working with Laclede Gas Co. to implement a third-party verification process that ensures homes constructed as part of the program adhere to the guidelines initiated by the NAHB.

Tom Schultz at Laclede, one of the go-to guys from the outset, emphasizes that the guidelines company engineers helped develop certainly have raised the bar. Though stringent, they aren't intended as obstacles, but as standards to reach. New homes may be awarded a bronze, silver or gold rating-and a representative placard-that certifies the level of compliance reached. But it's important to note that the program is voluntary, above and beyond any state or federal requirements.

"This has gained momentum on its own," Schultz says. "You don't have to mandate doing the right thing."

With a squad of the utility's engineers having helped develop the standards here, one might not be surprised that they comprise a 10page document listing dozens of specs in seven sections, from "Lot Design, Preparation and Development" to "Global Impact."

The end result of the rigorous process dedicated to designing and building a green home is a residence that from the street looks not a whole lot different than the nextdoor neighbor's place. Schultz notes, tongue slightly in cheek, that a residence achieving Bronze, Silver or Gold status isn't necessarily subterranean, nor is it a unique solar house that attracts drive-by gawkers.

"It's healthy, it's a better building-and it's a little more invisible," he says.

Laclede's teams make three or four visits to the construction sitewhich, as Schultz points out, raises the level of accountability. Many of the green specs are under wraps-behind the walls, under the floor, in a tighter seat between the garage and living space. Schultz has personally observed the painstaking attention to detail that crewsBetcher's, for one-apply during the process.