Make Your Home Tight, Right and Sustainable.

Tight Castle provides helpful information on sustainable design, green building for reducing carbon footprint. A tight home saves energy, reduces global warming, provides increased comfort and is healthier for occupants. LEED for homes design, green construction techniques and clean energy should be priorities in new home construction and renovation. We encourage home owners to have a home energy audit as a first step toward reducing carbon footprint.

From Montag

On May 3, 2011, Jennifer Senick was a keynote at our  Fifth Annual Real Estate Conference where she addressed the financial and operational benefits of sustainable or green construction in the built and new project environments. Here, Meryl Gonchar, Co-Chair of GRSDs Real Estate Department, and Senwan Akhtar, an attorney in the Real Estate and Corporate Departments and LEED-AP, interview Ms. Senick on the major points of her presentation and work.

1. What are the major financial benefits for building green for new construction in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors?Key financial benefits of new green construction generally relate to lower operational costs, and may include lower energy, waste and water costs, lower maintenance costs, and increased productivity and health. The latter, while difficult to measure/prove, have come to be regarded as the holy grail of green building given that labor costs for most businesses comprise the overwhelming majority of costs. Building green also presents opportunities for incentives to offset any higher initial capital costs and may result in increased occupancy rates and rental rates, insurance discounts and higher property value. While the data remains thin on these potential benefits, they have generated much interest among real estate companies. New green building valuation tools and metrics — such as the Green Building Underwriting Standards — should help to standardize this financial data, providing better opportunity for analysis and attainment of these benefits. The Green Building Underwriting Standards were completed by the Capital Markets Partnership, an American Standards Institute Accredited and Audited Standards Developer.1According to the Construction Marketplace SmartMarket Report, commercial green buildings have demonstrated an 8-9% decrease in operating cost, a 7.5% increase in building value and a 6.6% return on investment improvement.2 According to the Greening of Corporate America SmartMarket Report, commercial green buildings experience a 3.5% occupancy ratio increase and a 3% rent ratio increase.3 In a comparison of ENERGY STAR buildings and market comparables in the first quarter of 2008, ENERGY STAR buildings achieved 3.6% higher occupancy rates.4ENERGY STAR qualified homes use substantially less energy for heating, cooling, and water heating, delivering $200 to $400 in annual savings.5 There are currently over 1 million ENERGY STAR qualified homes in the United States and in 2010, families living in these homes saved more than $270 million on their utility bills.6In addition to offering financial advantages, building green provides environmental and social benefits such as protecting biodiversity and ecosystems, improving air and water quality, reducing waste, conserving natural resources and enhancing occupant comfort and health.

via The Financial Benefits Of Green Building – Real Estate & Construction – United States.

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The green movement has breathed new life into many overlooked and undervalued markets in the last decade. The prefabricated housing industry is one such example of dramatically shifting consumer demand, as the ‘less is more’ mantra becomes increasingly ubiquitous.

The industry has battled against stereotypes and image barriers for decades – many Western countries, especially the United States, view manufactured homes with a kind of cultural disdain, as their homogenized look and cost-cutting shortcuts in production made them a staple of low-brow, penny-counting suburbanites.

But all of that is changing quickly. An influx of stylish, eco-minded architects and designers into the field of prefabricated homes has brought a sense of renewal and chic to the sector, opening the door for a new breed of would-be homeowners and challenging the traditional model of urban and rural development. Costs are coming down, sustainability is on the rise, and the industry may finally be coming into its golden age.

A Revitalized Industry

The prefab genre includes modular, panelized, and manufactured homes, all of which first came onto the scene most notably after WWII, as millions of young soldiers returned from the theaters to move out into the suburbs and begin building a family life. Manufactured homes offered a cheap and time-saving alternative to tract housing. The trade-off in quality and design soon led to a decline in popularity, however, and the industry leveled off.

At least two factors have reinvigorated the prefab housing industry in recent years, however. The recession of 2008 and collapse of the housing market has emboldened potential homeowners to step outside the moors of traditional tract housing, whether for cost-savings or to avoid a turbulent market. More prominently, though, the turn towards sustainability and environmental consciousness has done the most to highlight the strengths and potential of prefab.

Moving construction to an indoor factory does three things – first, it dramatically cuts costs. Standardizing and pooling construction efforts allows for the best deals in materials and labor. Second, it cuts down on material waste. In tract housing projects, up to 30 percent of stick built home material goes unused. The increased efficiency in a factory setting allows for environmentally friendly materials to be used while remaining cost effective, as precision and quantities increase. Finally, as construction is unhampered by weather or other environmental concerns, building times are much lower and delays, weather or material related, are avoided altogether.

Innovations in prefab design may be the biggest driver behind growing consumer interest, however. Several prominent architects are radically rethinking the home with sustainable, contemporary alternatives to the increasingly passé cul-de-sac variety. A collaborative effort between Germany-based designers Patrick Frey and Björn Götte, for example, resulted in the modern simplicity of the Sommerhaus Piu, a chic and stylish summer cabin that is attracting buzz from all sides of the housing industry.

via The Prefab Housing Renaissance – Construction Digital.

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Researchers develop solar beads to heat your home

Researchers in India have developed a new type of bead from paraffin and stearic acid.  It absorbs heat from the sun during the day and then releases the heat at night. The new beads should work well in climates like the United States Southwestern states. PhysOrg reports that the findings will be published in The [...]

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Is Power Loss The New Norm?

In the post-9/11 world, American society has seen dramatic shifts. Some are large, like instability in the financial markets and stronger security measures at airports and border crossings. Others are less dramatic but changed longstanding traditions: The Super Bowl is now played in February and “God Bless America” is sung during the seventh inning stretch [...]

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High Performance Insulation Can Be Your Best Energy Investment

Insulation is the best financial investment you can make!  Some will say you reach the point of dimishing returns, at which point is is no longer advantageous to add insulation.  We do not subscribe to this notion. No matter how much insulation you install, you only do it once, and pay for it once.  That [...]

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Residential Solar FAQ’s and Resources :

FAQs And Resources from a leader in the industry. Q: How much does a residential PV system cost? A: In general, the bigger and more complex the system, the more it will cost. PV systems with batteries cost about 30% more than systems without batteries. Grid power is reliable so most people get an on-grid [...]

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LED bulbs are ready to light your home – 7 tips you should know | Eartheasy Blog

The technological advances in the development of LED light bulbs have been fast and furious, with manufacturers competing to design LED bulbs suitable for every application in the home, while working to lower the retail price to a tipping point of mass consumer acceptance. Today, these goals have largely been met. LED light bulbs are [...]

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