Affordable and green go together in home building
Green Home. Image Credit: greenjobsnow
Fernando Pages: One of the tenets of green building is sparing resources – not using so much lumber, not using so much concrete, not using so many natural resources in the construction of a house.
That’s Fernando Pages, President of Brighton Construction, in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Fernando Pages: Of course, when you use less to build a house, it also costs less. If you use less lumber, you don’t have to buy it. So affordable and green go together.
Pages builds low-cost ‘green’ homes designed to be affordable in themselves, without the need for government subsidies. Making that work, he said, takes intelligent design and fastidious quality control – from the nails to two-by-fours, to shingles.
Fernando Pages: And so, we really ‘value-engineer’, or study every single facet of the home construction to see where and how we can deliver a very high-quality product — energy efficient, durable — with, if possible, zero warrant calls. And at the same time, at the very, very best price.
Pages said the green building concept has caught on very quickly, though builders are still learning about how best to use the new green materials.
Fernando Pages: I think you’re going to see a very different construction industry 10-15 years from now than you have now. There’ll be a lot more sophistication, and it requires that the green building is really advanced building. It really is high-performance building.
The U.S. Housing Department contracted with Pages to build a ‘home of the future,’ which he designed to be efficient, affordable, and flexible. Completed in late 2007, it’s called the Omaha Concept House. The outer shell of the house, roof, walls, foundation are designed to last at least 75 years.
The interior, Pages said, is flexible. By taking the load off the inner walls, rooms can be easily expanded or added.
Fernando Pages: Walls can move. Light switches can be changed. Light fixtures can be put in different places, The plumbing, the air-conditioning, all the systems are organized in one location for easy access and easy remodeling. The house can shift from three bedrooms to seven bedrooms, so the interior of the house is sustainable in the sense that it can change. It is flexible.
Pages added that flexibility is important as future families of different sizes and cultures move in and out.
Houses are cheap quality in america. In Ukraine all houses are made out of brick unlike in america out of some cheap two by fours. The house shakes when you walk in it. Its brand new too.
Wouldnt building a house out of stone be more envronment freindly? It would last longer. In america everything cheap quality unless you buy things that were made in Japan.
Great piece. And while houses in America have been cheap, we are all seeing a dramatic shift in thinking here. And you are right – GREEN BUILDING is rapidly evolving into HIGH PERFORMANCE BUILDING. If you follow the industry trends, you see a massive divide between conferences like Green Build and conferences like Ecobuild America. ON the one side you still have people tripping out on Green. On the other side, you have people looking at Green as nothing more than a foundation for this much higher dialogue. Just because something is green doesnt make it great. But when you incorporate modular designs, community BIMstorming and the like, you have the future of green building.