LET “GREEN” BUILDING DIE A RAPID DEATH

Time for an honest look at “green” building.  I have really tried over the past 3 years to embrace this wonderful and planet saving method of building homes, but I don’t think very many people outside of Ed Begley and a couple of his tree hugging friends even understand it’s true meaning.  Even Al Gore was buying energy credits (whatever the heck they are) so he could have a thousand lights burning around his house.  FACT!

Let’s start with your customers.  I can just hear the conversation now! 

“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, I’ve quoted your new home for $100 per sq ft with all the features you wanted.  We can add Energy Star to the package and price will be $102 per sq ft.  This involves zero effort on your part.

We can also add “Green” to your home which requires a some effort on your part.  Most of the products we use will be cutting edge and we can’t guarantee  that the companies that make them will be in business 6 months from now.

Your house will be built to one of a dozen non-regulated “Green” standards (our choice)  depending on how much you want to spend and if you decide to build to the LEEDS standards, we have to start the whole process again.

And did I mention that there is some maintenance you have to do after the purchase?  And we can do this for $200 - $275 per sq ft depending on how much “Green” you want to spend.”

Let me get this straight!  Your customer can get an Energy Star home, with all the standards regulated by the Federal Government for about $2 a sq ft and not have to do anything special OR they can opt for a “Green” home with somebody’s self-regulated guidelines and do a lot of work to maintain the “Green” of their home for about $100 a sq ft more! 

Yeah, sign them up for the “Green” home.

Wake up people!  The vast majority of your customers really don’t want to do twice as much work on their home maintenance, they want a “maintenance free home.”  Don’t you builders ever listen to your customers?

Do I still think “Green” is good?  Absolutely!!!!!

But if you want to sell more “Green” homes, start with the passive options such as renewable products and non owner-maintenance items such as simple water retention systems.  Don’t make them do any work to brag to their friends that they built a “Green” house. 

And keep it AFFORDABLE!

If you build in Colorado or California, disregard the above article.  You live in a different world than the rest of us.