True to JaneAnne's educator spirit of challenging her students, the ECO~All~Stars' January 2009 Challenge has been a real stumper and caused me some grief!!!

I suspect I am not alone~ but I rise to the challenge....

I began by making a visit to the Build America website. The studies provided demonstrate there are at least 5 different building climates in the United States. Through Build America, a building technology program from the Department of Energy (DOE), best practices have been studied for each of these climates. In addition, the DOE has studied solar thermal and solar photovoltaics (PV) best practices. These best practice case studies were prepared with your tax dollars and are available to you, consumers, builders and developers at no cost from the DOE, you have already paid for them.

Then I turned to Brad Pitt's Making It Right Project. I am not privy to the LEED – H checklist submitted to USGBC for certifying the homes Mr. Pitt is building in New Orleans, but I suspect that many of the points for certification have been garnered from site specific building practices. I am not going to explain the whole point system here, that will make a series of articles for me in the future. In the meantime, you can research the information on the USGBC website.

What I would like to call attention to is that a large part of what makes a home sustainable comes from site specific design. This is a basic premise of the US Green Building Council and correlates with the mission to have a profound impact not only on our economy, health and productivity ~ but also

~on our natural environment~

Over 50% of the points of the minimum 45 for a LEED-H certification can be achieved by meeting the following site specific goals:

1. Compact development – building in areas with high housing density – up to 3 points
2. Site selection – building is built close to existing infrastructure - up to 3 points
   
3. Limiting use of outdoor water – this is automatically earned by those homes built in compact development – 1 point
4. Homes with ready access to community resources such as restaurants, groceries and schools and being near open space – up to 3 points
5. And the biggie – up to 10 points for homes smaller than the national average
   

A goal of the LEED-H program is that homes are affordable.

Part of the equation to build homes affordable are energy efficiency and durability. If a homeowner cannot afford the utilites after they move into the home they purchased at whatever costs, even if they were given the home in exchange for sweat equity, the home is truly not affordable. This is the part of the equation most people miss.

Up front cost does not make a home affordable!

To demonstrate this first part of JaneAnne's Challenge:

•1) REVEAL HOW members of yourcommunity might benefit from sustainable (green) designs

Come learn about a real example from my community.

There are many examples of homes that have not registered for LEED certification but possibly could have met certification if they had gone through the process. One of these homes I am familiar with is in Muskegon, Michigan.

This Muskegon County Habitat for Humanity home is built in a high density neighborhood. It is close to schools and hospitals and is within walking distance of an existing transportation infrastructure. The lot size and orientation is such that the footprint of the home only had one possible orientation on the site. Thus, other design changes were made to give it the best possible passive solar design.

This Muskegon Habitat for Humanity Home sports sleek, low profile solar hot water panels. This will give the homeowners, with all their children, FREE hot water for bathing, dishes, laundry and other household needs.

This is not the only design feature that will bring affordability to the large family moving into this home.

The design incorporates insulated concrete forms for the foundation, features highly efficient windows, programmable thermostats, and low flow water fixtures. It is an attractive home. This was a major goal. Homeowners will take more pride in an attractive house.

The home and Muskegon County Habitat for Humanity truly deserve a blog dedicated (coming in February) to put a spotlight on this successful project!

I’m fairly certain, this home that was built within budget, did not have a $15,000 design budget. I will check with Mike McIntyre at Muskegon Habitat to verify that information.

I suspect quite the opposite is true, it was built with intelligence, building science and existing resources which add to the sustainability of the project.

A major contributor to project success is Integrated Team Work from all members from the beginning of the project. This home demonstrates the dedication Michigan and Habitat for Humanity has to affordable housing.

And for the EASY part of JaneAnne's Challenge?

•2) REVEAL HOW members of the Active Rain Community can demonstrate to Brad Pitt the benefit of making the designs from his New Orleans project available for a nominal price to Individuals, Eco-communities, and/or Builders and Developers. EX. The availability might raise enough money to sponsor the remaining 62 homes that Brad Pitt has left to do.

My Dad always says, KISS....Keep It Simple Sweetheart!

As for Brad Pitt’s designs? They probably wouldn’t be much help any Michigan communities – the designs on stilts would need to be modified for our building and energy codes which would again increase the cost. We build most of our homes with the foundations below ground, not above ground! Engineering would need to be done for snow loads on the roofs.There would also be other design considerations.

This would not be very sustainable in practice.

But may I suggest?

The International Builder’s Show is just getting started in Las Vegas. This event promises to bring 90,000+ industry professionals together. Some of those professionals may find value in owning one of Mr. Pitt’s designs, if just to showcase a piece of a celebrity project and to support a good cause. They would probably get a charitable tax deduction to boot!

The Make It Right Project has 62 more homes to build at a cost of 200K each. Simple math tells me the project needs $12.4M to be completed. If Mr. Pitt’s entourage gave his designs away at the builder’s show in exchange for a minimum $1000 donation each he would need to secure 12,400 donations to attain his goal. At 5K each, Pitt would only need to attain 2,480. Seems rather simple and achievable.

I suppose if Mr. Pitt flew me out and provided accomodations I could reschedule my week to go take care of this for him.

~or~

How about a better idea that is likely more sustainable and would bring MORE VALUE to New Orleans?

I don't have the counts but I assume there are somewhere "in the neighborhood" (pun intended)  200,000+ homes that need to be rebuilt in New Orleans. Mr. Pitt’s designs were created specifically for New Orleans. Why not team up and share those plans with other builders and developers in NEW ORLEANS for a nominal fee of $500 or $1000 with rights to build from the designer/architect.

Seems a pretty simple solution that will best serve the New Orleans community….

Good luck, Mr. Pitt, I hope you attain your goal!

Thank you JaneAnne, Stephanie and the ECO~All~Stars for the challenge!!!

Mary T. Bigelow © Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.