Our first objective was to determine who were the builders in Oklahoma city area that are using green building techniques and to what degree. We talked to several builders in the area about green building. Several were using some of the techniques to improve energy efficiency such as solar board on the roofs, and walls.blown in cellulose,Seer 13 HVAC, house wraps, low e windows, caulking to seal air leaks and advanced framing. None of the initial contractors that we met were using a third party energy rater to over see the different segments of the construction process,size the HVAC and measure the energy efficiency. We decided to look for Energy Star rated contractors that committed to build Energy Star Certified homes. Energy Star defined by the DOE is a joint program between the US Environmental Protection Agency and The Department of Energy to help Americans save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices. Energy efficient choices can save families about 30% on their energy bill with similar savings of greenhouse gas emissions without sacrificing features, style or comfort. Under this program in 2007 DOE reported, American families saved over 16 Billion in utility bills. We talked with those Energy Star builders that has committed to building all their homes Energy Star and have built over a hundred Energy star homes in the past few years. We discussed the transition from building the standard way to the Energy Star level required retraining subcontractors to understand the benefits and change in tecniques in building an energy efficient home whose performance will be measured in order to qualify for the Energy Star Certification. We discussed with the builders our desire to build an energy efficient home of about 2800Sqft. They estimated our cost would range from $115-125 per sqft. with the upgrades we wanted. Our objective was to see if we could build a home that exceeded the Energy Star requirements like the Leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) program for $100 or less per sqft. The US Green Building Council has developed a program for builders that exceed the Energy Star requirements with a goal of reducing energy cost by 50%. Their program sets criteria and measures the innovation and design process, Location and and site of the project, Sustainability, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, Materials and Resources indoor environmental quality, awareness and education. We are in the process of evaluating the LEED requirements to determine which level we can qualify for and still meet our objective of staying in our budget.
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