High-performance homes in Seattle have found a niche market of buyers who have become increasingly frustrated with maintaining an older home are looking to re-establish themselves within an amenity rich urban neighborhood, wanting, still,  to be close to libraries, markets, churches, parks and fee from week-end home repair projects.

Builders are starting to re-think their approach to building high performance homes

Developers and builders are starting to see this trend happening throughout the country, causing many to re-think their approach to building.  Within the hierarchy of green builders in the Seattle area building high-performance homes are the ones that build to higher scrutiny by having their high-performance homes verified by an independent certified third-party verifier.

Levels of certification indicate the level of the homes energy performance, water savings, indoor air quality, the builder’s use of material resources, and recycling during construction.  The builders who receive certification as a  Built Green 4 & 5 Star, LEED and Building America homes have all gone a rigorous building process have all been verified by an independent verifier  and their reports are submitted to the certificating organization for documenting and certification of their high performance homes.

High performance homes are more environmentally friendly

Seattle, Portland, San Francisco are a few of the city’s building high-performance homes that are smaller and more environmentally friendly, that blend into the existing neighborhood. Their new “lifestyle house” is a product that is targeted to a specific group of buyers looking for a well-designed high-performance house in a neighborhood centric area. Their overall goal is too eventually build high performance homes that are sustainable, environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a home’s life-cycle.”

The challenge for home builders is to build a high performance home without dramatically increasing their cost of construction. The longer builders stay at buildinghigh performance homes the better they get at it, the key is to utilizing a whole house as a system approach to design and construction of their high performance homes. A good example would be using more insulation and higher efficient windows and doors and air sealing techniques; this would allow the builder to reduce the size of the heating and cooling equipment they’re installing in their high performance home.

Today, high-performance homes in the Seattle area are built with higher standards compared to a typical code built home.  With special focus being given to:

 Energy Efficiency

Indoor Air Quality

Conserving Natural Resources

Water Quality

Related posts:

1. Green Building: Sustainable Benefits (19.5)
2. Do green homes sell for more? (18.9)
3. New Green Homes on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill (15.4)
4. Green Certified Homes in Bothell, Lynnwood and Mill Creek selling faster than non-certified homes (15.2)
5. Where are the green home buyers (14.9)