Quote of the Day: Building Green Houses is Like "Polishing a Turd"

One problem is that most people's expectations are that their new home should look just like any other newly built home (or maybe that's just the builder's expectation). So builders build homes that look just like the old inefficient ones, and throw in whatever efficiency upgrades they can manage without compromising the old look.

Another problem is that builders can up-sell energy efficiency - they can charge more for an energy efficient home - so there is less incentive for them to find cheaper ways to build it - they can build the standard model for $X, the energy efficient model for $X+10%, and sell the first for $Y and the second for $Y+15%.

The solution is for building codes to continuously raise the bar, so that building energy efficient homes is no longer an up-sell opportunity but a requirement. Then you'll have builders motivated to find the cheapest design that helps them meet the spec.

Oddly, affluent people are the ones most able to pay a lot for energy, but also the most interested in conservation and willing to pay for green improvements. Of course, a lot of these green mansions are 5-10000 square feet, but when their unemployed cousins move in they'll be more efficient!

There are several technologies that could be used to make homes cheaper and more energy efficient - the Federation fo American Scientists has been talking about the Thermasave system and insulated concrete form techniques for a long time. If these were used along with solar photovoltaic roofs etc, both low construction costs and energy efficient, properly insulated homes that are also safer (the Thermasave system has been tested to withstand very severe earthquakes and fires for example) would be available as a result.

Most builders are probably unaware of newer technologies - if there were a system of continuing education for them to get their licenses which focused on new and evolving technologies it would be a good thing. It is easy to criticize people but acknowledging where their knowledge is lacking and helping them build on what they know to bring it up to date is a better way ahead. Like the ancient saying that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness . . .

Roy-
I'm afraid my experience doesn't mesh with yours. I work for a solar installer and I have found that wealthy people are the least interested in efficiency and renewable energy and the least willing to pay for either. On the rare occasion that a wealthy home owner calls in, their first question is inevitably "What is the Payback" Right now its 15-20 years and they just aren't interested. Of course the wasteful plasma TV and the luxury car they own will only lose value, but that doesn't concern them. One client we had last year who is a venture capitalist wrote an article in a local paper asking his financial peers what payoff they received for marble Great Rooms and acres of stone-scaping. Yes they ad to property value, but so do renewable energy systems, and they get tax credits, and produce electricity.

I heard it can cost 10k just to do the paperwork to actually get your house/structure LEED certified.

@Preserve: I've never looked into the costs for seeking LEED certification for single family homes...but for the projects I've worked on through certification--large urban multifamily (condos / rental apartments) developments which are considered commercial construction--the fee for the design/construction review can go up to about $13,500. That number is only for review of submitted documents though. Add to that the fees for all the consultants involved (mechanical engineering analysis, hvac commissioning agent, LEED consultant, additional architect services) in order to produce the required documents, and you quickly get to the $250,000 to $350,000 range...that being said, compared to construction cost, this figure is typically less than 1%.

A lot of jurisdictions are moving toward requiring LEED certification for this type of new construction. However, where it's not required I recommend to our clients that instead of spending this money on consultant fees, they put it into the construction budget with the goal of making the building more energy efficient.

As for the question of "Why do production home builders and established developers, people who have been building homes for many years, have to spend 15% more to get to LEED Platinum while us rookies are getting there at a discount?" Well...one point of consideration is that these production homebuilders have been building in such large quantities that they've been getting pretty deep discounts on the parts of the homes that they buy the most of. So what have they done? They've standardized their home designs to perpetuate the cycle of deeper and deeper discounts. Then, as soon as they step outside of the box they've built themselves into, material costs make a big jump because they're not getting those discounts that they were enjoying with the "standard" products. The rookies out there don't always see the increases because, if they're truly rookies, they're comparing the pricing of the new and advanced products to the other stuff thats been out there and, at MSRP or whatever you want to call it, it truly isn't a premium.

Now, all the large home builders are laying off people. It's unfortunate for those who lose their jobs, however, the hope is that when things turn around, there are more rookies out there that get the better homes built and get it done at a discount.