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Builders

New Home Builders should:
Evaluate High Performance, Energy Saving, Green Building Applications.

Why should any builder consider High Performance, Energy Conservation or Green Building Techniques? Because it feels good? Because it protects the environment? Because it saves your customer money? Because your nice people?


These are all commendable reasons, but the reality is: Builders work for profit. For the past few years Builders have done what they do best--Build--and make profit. When a Builder constructed a new house in the recent souped up economy, people bought them as fast as they were finished. Non-stop Action!

What about now? Are we in just another of the recurring downward cycles involving building? Most Builders have experienced the up and down movement of building’s economic cycles. Now we have to ask: Are there really building practice changes blowing on the wind? Does a Builder adjust to them or just hunker down and wait for the next positive cycle? That like any fad, High Performance, Energy Conserving, Green Building applications will just disappear? Does the Builder believe when housing bounces back, they will be right back in business using the same building techniques they have always employed?

The question has to be: “Are High Performance, Energy Saving, Green Building housing techniques worth changing your building methods for?” Or will you, when the housing cycle recovers, discover changing your methods will have been an expensive, over-reaction that you should have ignored?

If customers are buying your services, or hiring you to custom build their home, without requesting High Performance, Energy Conserving, Green Building considerations, why change? Why should builders break something that has been working OK? What’s the matter with improving on something that has worked OK? Don’t break it, improve it. If Builders didn’t improve their building systems over the years, we would all still be living in sod huts. Builders are innovators, they employ what works. They may not change immediately, for just any fad, but if it works and generates profits, they change.

Exploring building events of the past 30 years, a builder has to ask the question: Is this the 70's when energy conservation was a huge issue and then disappeared in the go-go 80's? Is this another down cycle similar to the early 90's, primed to come roaring back in 2008, like the gang-buster period that just ended?

Speaking from experience, this author, believed during the 70's that energy costs were going to go through the roof. That $3/gallon gas was imminent in 1979. That electricity and natural gas rates were ready to sky rocket upwards. If someone would have suggested Americans would be paying less than a $1.00 a gallon for fuel in the early 2000's, I would have said they were on drugs. I was wrong. During those cycles, I didn’t revert to building without energy conserving considerations, but energy conservation was only important to a small niche of home buyers. I don’t believe that is the case now or into the future. High Performance Housing is here to stay.

Why? Simple. The entire world has progressed. There are substantial fossil fuel energy demands coming from countries other than America. The oil rich Middle East is a hot spot of unrest and turmoil. The supplies are unstable. There are minimal reserves. Disasters and wars instantaneously create shortages which immediately drive energy prices higher. The oil suppliers of the world have gotten a lot smarter and they aren’t intimidated by the United States position or consumption habits. If they don’t’ sell to America, someone else will buy it, at the suppliers price. Energy prices aren’t going down for the next building upswing.

Another reason? An informed buying public. The World Wide Web and the instant access to information, readily available on any subject, including building, arm today’s consumer with relevant building information. Information that is pertinent to their buying habits. Today’s consumers research before they buy. Throw the aging baby boom population into that mix, an astute, experienced home owner group with money, who demand modern amenities coupled with technological advances, and you have a movement that is not going the way of Black&White TV. The High Performance, Energy Conserving, Green Building movement is here to stay.

Consider this:
A Ryland Home’s representative made a presentation at the most recent Energy and Environmental Building Association convention held in Hampton, Virginia in October of 2006. The EEBA conference had the high priest’s of Building Science present. Ryland’s presentation was not about pie-in-the-sky scenarios, it was based on experience. It was entitled, “The King of High Performance Sales.” The message was this:

Ryland Homes in Houston introduced a High Performance, Energy Efficient housing program called House Works. They tested all types of media messages to determine what worked and what didn’t in drawing crowds to their homes. What they found was: Promoting and Heralding High Performance housing features in their media marketing program didn’t get the results they anticipated. Promoting High Performance wasn’t even in the Top 5 for drawing people to their site. You didn’t get them in the door pushing performance.

Now the revelation: High Performance Housing kept them in the door once they got there. The consumer equated High Performance with High Quality. High Performance features generated the most return traffic resulting in sales. Ryland promoted these performance features with their marketing and sales literature handouts. Hands down, while these features didn’t get buyers in the door, it kept them in the door and kept them coming back, resulting in sales. There is the big feature: Resulting in sales. Sales mean profit. That is why Builders Build.

Ryland’s Highlights:
  • Their House Works program gave them a unique branding as the leading High Performance Housing Provider in Houston. As the performance leader in the market they got the most free PR from Newspapers, TV, and Radio. They got the phone calls as the expert and leading provider of High Performance Houses in Houston.
  • The High Performance House features were emphasized in their sales and marketing hand outs. The hand outs dared the consumer to test Ryland’s features against the competitions. Direct comparisons brought the consumer back to buy.
  • The utility cost and maintenance savings off set any price differences. Buyers were willing to pay for these features, when they were sold as benefits.
Ryland discovered you can’t build and sell High Performance Housing without marketing the features as a benefit. It was not about the High Performance, it was about the benefits. The house may be energy efficient, but the consumer needs to see it cost less to operate. Ryland had to emphasize the high quality of living, less maintenance, a healthier living environment, less dust, a quiet house, less air stratification resulting in a cozier, comfortable home. The home had to be presented as a well oiled machine, featuring superior living conditions, providing all of today’s demanded modern amenities.

What can building High Performance Housing do for you-- the Builder? What does it give you?
  • A Competitive Edge: Providing the same amenities as your competition, coupled with high performance benefits, positions you above the competition.
  • A Distinct, Marketable Branding for your homes.
  • The ability to sell more of your homes.
  • The ability to produce a higher quality product, with less call backs, resulting in increased profit.
  • The ability to save your home purchaser monthly expenditures, creating more discretionary income to spend on your product. They can qualify for a higher mortgage.
  • A word of mouth marketing buzz resulting in free publicity and media hype.
  • A designation as an expert, progressive, high quality builder.

OK, I’m Psyched. Where do I start?
Energy Star, Earthcraft Homes, Green Building, High Performance Homes, Solar Energy, Super Insulation, Air Infiltration, Healthy Houses, make up air, minimizing duct leakage, unvented crawl spaces, new energy efficiency products. Heating, Plumbing, Hot Water and Air Conditioning efficiencies! Blower Door Tests, Duct Blaster Tests. These are only a few of the energy terms and features confronting a builder. How do you make sense of it?
  • Bob’s Builder Law #1: Your decision should be cost justified and make you money.
    That money is made by: selling houses quicker, selling more houses, increasing profit potential, or some combination of each.
  • Bob’s Builder Law #2: You must be able to relate the High Performance Housing features directly as benefits to your customer.
    Whether that is: Savings on monthly energy consumption; lower Dr. Bills; fewer maintenance costs; or a healthier, quieter, dust free, mold free, cozy, comfortable home. Sell the benefits, not the specifications.

What is the first thing you do?
HOMEWORK! Awful, but necessary. The first stop is the Energy Star Web Site (www.energystar.gov) or call the Energy Star Hotline(1-888-STAR-YES; 1-888-782-7937). Why? It’s free. It’s informative. Here you can grasp an immediate understanding of the energy buzz.

Why Energy Star? It is the most recognized brand in the High Performance Building Industry. Our mission is to provide assistance leading to your making rational, common sense, economic decisions, regarding High Performance, Energy Savings, Green Building housing construction. That means our purpose is to help you make money while promoting High Performance Housing. Energy Star is the place to start.

At Energy Star you will be introduced to the Energy Star Thermal Bypass Checklist. This is the building block. The foundation for all High Performance Housing. It’s not complicated. It’s practical. It improves your house’s building envelope and no matter what you have been led to believe, it is not going to break your bank.

Armed with the information from Energy Star, you can now move forward with a basic, practical understanding of Energy Conservation and High Performance.

Now what do you do? If you want to do it, and do it right, you visit the EarthCraft home site: www.earthcraft.com. This program was developed by the Atlanta Builders Association in conjunction with the Southface Institute, a Green, Energy Conservation consulting group. It makes sense for builders. It is practical and utilizes common sense in its application.

In Virginia, Governor Kaine recently introduced the EarthCraft Virginia Building Program. The partners in the program again include the Southface Institute, along with the Virginia Builders Association (HBAV) and the Virginia Sustainable Building Network. At the press conference, Anthony Clatterbuck, President of HBAV stated:

“HBAV supports this program because EarthCraft House allows builders great flexibility in achieving environmental performance. Adoption of this program supports the builders’ ability to deliver homes that lessen their impact on the environment and provide home-buyers with independently inspected and certified homes that are high-performance, durable and resource efficient.”

Tom Skeritt said in Top Gun, “You are the best of the best, but we will make you better.” In Virginia, if you want to be better, with the best technical assistance team available, you visit www.earthcraftva-sf.org and for multi-family visit www.ecvirginia.org Visiting Earthcraft, and hooking up with its team, is the best move you as a builder can make. What are you waiting for? Let’s get started.