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Keystone Green Building Program Follows NAHB Model
The Home Builders Association of Bucks and Montgomery Counties in suburban Philadelphia is the latest HBA to launch a green building program based on NAHB’s Model Green Home Building Guidelines.
The association is inaugurating the program on Sept. 26 with a media tour of its first green-certified home and a keynote address by Carl Seville, a longtime green builder in Atlanta and winner of the 2006 NAHB Green Remodeler of the Year award.
Pennsylvania’s Keystone Green Building Initiative is being started up with marketing and administrative assistance from the Green Building Initiative. The GBI is helping to launch programs based on the NAHB guidelines in a number of markets around the country.
Pennsylvania’s green building program was more than two years in the planning, said architect David Hartke of Stampfl Hartke Associates LLC, co-chair of the HBA’s Keystone Green Building Initiative.
“We started looking at a couple different green building programs,” including Earthcraft in Atlanta and early versions of the United States Green Building Council’s LEED-H program, which members decided was not oriented toward production homes, key to bringing green into the mainstream, Hartke said.
“I knew we had to be realistic, and to be realistic, it had to be market-based,” he said. Then in 2005, “NAHB came out with the Model Green Home Building Guidelines,” and the GBI helped the Pennsylvania builders get the program off the ground.
While engineers and architects tend to be more familiar with green concepts, builders and subcontractors may find “it’s not in their vocabularies right now,” Hartke said, but they are catching on quickly.
The tour house is Hartke’s own, and includes green features such as Optimum Value Engineering framing, which is 24 inches on center and then stacked and filled with spray foam insulation. The home also includes high-efficiency windows, a geothermal heat pump and solar panels on the roof. The green features added about 8.5% to the construction costs because of the expense of the geothermal and photovoltaic features; Hartke estimates that the costs would have been perhaps 4% more than a conventionally built home without those additions.
Future components of the HBA program will include more education for builders and vendors, Hartke said.
The NAHB University of Housing will be offering a two-day “Green Building for Building Professionals” course during the 2007 NAHB Green Building Conference. Seville will be the instructor for the course.
For more information, e-mail Calli Schmidt, or call her at 800-368-5242 x8132.
Entry Period Underway for Green Building Awards
Entries are now being sought for NAHB’s National Green Building Awards, which recognize individuals, companies and organizations for helping to move green into the mainstream of the housing industry through their designs and construction practices.
The annual awards will be presented during ceremonies at the association’s National Green Building Conference, which will be held in St. Louis on March 25 to 27.
The awards honor achievements in seven categories:
- Advocate of the Year
- Green Building Program of the Year
- Outstanding Green Marketing Program
- Green Project of the Year — Single-Family
- Green Project of the Year — Multifamily
- Green Project of the Year — Land Development
- Green Project of the Year — Remodeling
Members are invited to submit a completed application package by Dec. 29, 2006. For project awards, construction must have been started by June 2005 and substantially completed by December 2006.
To enter by mail, send a hard copy and a disk of the completed application. For an application form and instructions on how to send logos, project photos and other artwork, click here.
For more information, e-mail Emily English at NAHB, or call her at 800-368-5242 x8366.
 Get Green Building Intelligence Today at BuilderBooks.com
“Residential Green Building SmartMarket Report,” available through BuilderBooks.com, addresses the growing trends and opportunities in green home building.
The report provides the results of market research conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction and NAHB about green building in home construction.
To view or purchase this publication online, click here, or call 800-223-2665.
Save the Date for 2007 National Green Building Conference
Mark your calendar for March 25-27 for the National Green Building Conference. Visit www.nahb.org/greenbuilding for more information.
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