LEEDing the Way: What it takes to create a model ‘green’ home By Erin Crowell When it comes to living green, it’s about getting the most bang for your buck without leaving a considerable carbon footprint in your wake. The U.S. Green Building Council has developed a standard that allows homeowners to do just that through its LEED program (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). LEED provides verification that a building was designed and built with a focus on “energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.” Northern Michigan is now home to such a building: Located near Kingsley, the Granite Hill project is a LEED-certified home, rated gold on a 100-point scale. Other categories include platinum, silver and bronze accreditation. It’s the first LEED home in Grand Traverse County, earning national awards for its ‘green’ assets and serving as a model home for the 2009 Michigan Energy Fair. “It’s really exciting to be at the forefront, We take a lot of pride in it,” says Joel Diotte of Frontier Construction, who, along with partners Matt Diotte and Pete Stern, was the builder for the Granite Hill project. Frontier specializes in green construction, although Granite Hill, named for the collection of granite rock on the lot, is the company’s first LEED project. The company’s main construction product is insulating concrete forms — steel reinforced concrete with foam insulation and poured concrete on the inside. Diotte says it’s the most energy efficient building system available, which is why Frontier was recommended for the Granite Hill project.
A SLEW OF SAVINGS Insulated concrete forms provide just a fraction of the energy-saving products inside the home. “There’s a whole slew of things that make it energy efficient and environmentally friendly,” says Diotte. The list includes James Hardie fiber cement siding, Energy Star rated metal roof shingle with 30% recycled material, Low-E argon gas-filled Anderson Windows, soy-based insulation, stained concrete floors, radon venting, dual flush toilets, low flow plumbing fixtures, Zero VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint, compact fluorescent bulbs, Energy Star appliances and more. “The soy byproduct insulation is the same as petroleum based, but it’s 100 percent renewable product,” says Diotte. The home also features a solar hot water heater “which works so well, that the homeowners called me in November saying they couldn’t use both showers,” says Diotte, “They’d been living there for four months and didn’t even have the electric water heater turned on. They were using just the solar hot water heater. A lot of people question whether solar hot water heaters work in Michigan, but they do. It’s the most cost effective renewable energy source.”
PASSIVE SOLAR Designed by Eric Hughes of Image Design in Grand Rapids, the house boasts a passive solar design, an architectural trick that civilization has long forgotten. “People used to think of the design a long time ago, and just don’t any more,” says the homeowner (who wishes to remain anonymous). He points to the Anasazi tribe of New Mexico, which occupied mainly cliff and mesa-top dwellings around 1,000 AD. The tribe situated their dwellings so that the winter sun would fill and warm the space during the season; and during the summer, the position of the sun would mostly keep the dwellings under shade. “Houses used to be designed like this in the early 1900s and when heat became cheaper, people were like, ‘screw it,’” he adds. The Granite Project uses passive solar design in the same capacity, with overhangs that shield the house from the highest point of the sun; and in the winter, sunlight floods and encompasses the space. The house was also placed on the lot that would give it the best angle in relation to the sun.
COST EFFECTIVE HOME For the Granite Hill project, the average cost was $130 per square foot. “Not much more than a stick frame house of the same construction and size,” says Diotte. He explains the goal of LEED certification is to not have the house cost more than what a typical house would cost. The house relies on zero fossil fuels and maintains an average utility bill of $85 per month, year-round. “Since September, it’s actually been down to $75 on average,” says the homeowner, who also points to their Tulikivi masonry heater as their primary source of heat. “My wife actually makes the comment a lot about our families’ homes downstate that use forced air, and when we go to visit we would say, ‘man this place is cold,’ and their heat is at 70 degrees,” he says. “In our house, when we’ve got a fire going, it’s shorts and t-shirts, no problem.” The masonry stove, directly shipped from Finland, was the biggest up-front cost in the Granite Hill project, “but so worth it in the long run,” adds the homeowner. “We felt bad about shipping 900 pounds from Finland. That’s a pretty big carbon footprint. But then, we thought… you do that once, and you’ll never have to hook up to carbon gas again. All of our future heat will be from the backwoods.” The homeowners invested 2.5 years of research before breaking ground, mostly to ensure the safest, healthiest and most cost-effective home for their budget. “We try to maximize benefit for cost. Some ideas come from the builder, the homeowner and the designer,“ says Diotte. The LEED certification seemed like a great way to get everyone on board. It gave us a guideline to follow,” says the homeowner. Currently, there is no tax break for buildings that are LEED certified. However, there is a plan in legislation that will give breaks according to the level of certification based on points. Energy Star is the only tax break incentive, offering a break for homes that are 30 percent more efficient than the standard in 1980. “Which isn’t that great,” says Diotte. “If the tax break goes through, then LEED will be the future of green building. It’s definitely the most stringent.” The homeowners say they are proud to have the first LEED certified home in Grand Traverse County and believe they won’t be the last. “I hope to see more of it around here,” he says. “You don’t have to build a half million dollar house to do it. We didn’t.”
Frontier Construction is located in Maple City. For more information on services and upcoming projects, visit their website at www.frontier-construction.com or call 231-360-3534. For Image Design, visit imagedesignllc.blogspot.com or call 616-957-LEED.
Send a Press Release
