Going for Green
Well, if you don’t believe us the Charlotte Business Journal sure does - in their article Going for Green.
A big thanks to the the amazing word smith Laura Williams-Tracy highlighting our insights on high-performance construction and the expertise of our friends and colleagues in the local building industry.
Net Zero is a Thing
Ryan Dennison, partner at Spoke & Hammer, is pictured at a solar home build project in Huntersville. Design by Alter Architects.
Some Excerpts
>> “Definitely around Charlotte, the appetite for sustainable design has increased over the last 10 years,” says Toby Witte, [of] Wittehaus specializing in energy-efficient, luxury homes. “But we are miles behind what we could do.”
While building codes and standards play a role in the drive to create sustainable homes, Witte and builders say what works are ideas that have been around for a long time. Those include orienting a house to reduce the necessary energy load, taking advantage of the sun to heat the home in the winter and long porches for shade in the summer. Solar panels take advantage of free energy from the sun.
“Every house can be their own little Duke Energy plant,” Witte says. The energy produced from solar panels can recoup the cost in saved energy bills over time. Those sustainability avenues are readily available to homeowners and can be baked into the cost of a new home.
“We can have a healthier environment to live in and a house that will last for generations,” Witte says.
Steven Kasay, founder of Kasay Construction, introduced a Charlotte chapter of Building Science + Beer to get builders together and talking about the latest in building science.
“We’ve shifted our focus to yes, it’s a sustainable home but it’s really a better-health home with better indoor air quality,” Kasay says.
Sustainable builder Spoke & Hammer Construction Co. has built homes to Energy Star certification for several years and considers the program a minimum standard. Spoke & Hammer built a Zero Energy Ready home and holds Passive House certification.
Dennison says some builders use insulated sheathing on the exterior to eliminate thermal bridging from the outside temperature to the home’s wooden studs.
“We describe it like wrapping a house in a blanket or building it like a Yeti cooler,” Dennison says. “There’s a cost premium to it, but it pays dividends over the life of the home in lower heating and cooling bills.” <<
More Info
Writer Laura Williams-Tracy had reached out after finding us as a member of the Green Built Alliance in Asheville, NC. Check it out! It is a great resource on all things high-performance in the South East.
