Blueprint For Green Homes is in the Works (26-Oct-07)
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Full story: Blueprint For Green Homes is in the Works (26-Oct-07)
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Group to debut program at builders show in Orlando.
The National Association of Home Builders plans to launch a "National Green Building Program" in Orlando next February, part of an industrywide push to streamline and standardize the way builders meet voluntary guidelines for making homes more energy efficient and environmentally neutral.
The program debut will be Feb. 14 during the trade association's 2008 International Builders' Show in the Orange County Convention Center. The launch will be a key feature among a number of "green-themed" activities during the builders' convention, which last year attracted more than 100,000 industry professionals.
The largest such trade show of its kind in the country, it has been held in Orlando in recent years because the convention center is one of a few venues in the nation large enough to host such an event at one location.
The NAHB's "green" initiative will link dozens of state and local green-building programs with a "universal online certification tool," a national registry of green homes and green builders, and educational tools and resources for home builders and buyers.
About 100,000 energy-efficient and environmentally friendly "green homes" have been built through programs run or supported by local building associations in recent years, the trade group estimates. That's a tiny share of all U.S. homes that are built annually, and most of those are in states such as California and Florida.
NAHB President Brian Catalde, a home builder in Southern California, said the group's initiative is "not a new way to build green" but will provide a boost to the field because it will provide the framework for a "low-cost administrative and certification system" that should help make green construction more affordable.
Affordability is a key hurdle to more widespread acceptance of "going green," from a builder's perspective as well as the consumer's. Building green can boost a home's price by varying amounts, depending on how many features are worked into the design or are retrofitted into a standard design.
A roof that is more energy efficient, for example, costs more up front but can help save the home buyer money in the long run. Anything builders can do to get those energy-efficient roofs and shingles onto homes at prices as close as possible to average market rates can help consumers deal with "sticker shock" and help the nation overall by reducing energy consumption and minimizing harmful effects to the environment.
Catalde said earlier this week that affordability is "the key to market acceptance," and anything that can be done to hold down costs will help move green building practices "into the mainstream."
The big Orlando trade show, which provides a multimillion-dollar boost to the Orlando-area economy -- especially the International Drive tourist corridor -- is billed as the world's largest gathering for residential construction.
The United States is unique in the world in that no other nation, even among developed countries, builds homes for its citizens on the same per-capita basis. U.S. builders lead the world in mass-production home building, which has lowered costs in much the same way that the nation pioneered mass production of automobiles nearly a century ago.
- Source: Orlando Sentinel.com
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