Triangle home builders go green

Raleigh, N.C. — Home builders in four Triangle counties have pooled their resources to encourage building environmentally friendly houses.

The Home Builders Association of Durham, Orange and Chatham Counties on Monday officially joined with the Home Builders Association of Raleigh-Wake County to form Green Home Builders of the Triangle.

The program lets builders get their homes certified as green houses, according to guidelines established by the National Association of Home Builders.

Houses must meet performance goals in six categories: lot preparation and design, resource efficiency, energy efficiency, water conservation and efficiency, occupancy comfort and indoor environmental quality, and operation, maintenance and education.

"We're running out of resources," said Tim Minton, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Raleigh-Wake County. "For us to be able to build for the future, we're going to have to be more efficient and (have) a better use of those resources."

The Home Builders Association of Durham, Orange and Chatham Counties launched their green-building program in November 2006 with 123 members. Since then, the HBA has certified 99 homes and enrolled 150 homes as environmentally friendly.

Wake County would like to have about 300 green homes built this year, Minton said.

Although the conservation measures would add to the cost of new homes, industry experts said buyers would recoup those costs over time through lower utility costs.

Elected officials said Monday that they would consider waiving permit fees for green buildings.

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Latest Comments

Leonardo - "Can we PLEASE shut up about the drought already?"

Whoah...it's ok man, no one is discussing the drought in here.

fedupwithitall
January 28, 2008 4:58 p.m.

Can we PLEASE shut up about the drought already? This article is about building homes with minimal environmental impact, like homes with solar power, and resource-saving features like tankless water heaters. If you don't have anything useful to contribute to the specific topic, please don't say anything at all.

There's a drought...we all get it already. What do you people think...that someone on this message board doesn't already know there's a drought? Please stop spamming all the message boards about the drought.

Leonardo
January 28, 2008 4:42 p.m.

Joshua - Wachovia doesn't get in the business of sub-prime lending. It is of no fault to Wachovia.

Joshua, while Wachovia sold off their subprime unit in late 2006, they still have exposure of approx $3 billion related to subprime loans that they hold, and in fact, they took a write down of approx $350 million in the third quarter of 2007 related to subprime loans, so Wachovia is not purely innocent in the subprime crisis here.

fedupwithitall
January 28, 2008 3:44 p.m.

Boy I sure would hate to have to sell a "green " house in a neighborhood where other houses that look just like it and with same square footage are selling 4 to 6% less. Just a thought.

no.ral.old guy
January 28, 2008 1:52 p.m.

Oh, and blame them for the start of the recession.

I purchased a new home last year and made sure that if either my or my wife lost a job, we could still pay for half a year. Not rocket science here.