Chandler Design-Build of Mebane is the kind of small, custom builder that people go to for an environmentally friendly house. The company's clients tend to get excited about solar energy, super-insulated walls and landscaping with native plants.
"We attract a bunch of house geeks as customers," said Michael Chandler, who runs the company with his wife, Beth Williams.
Now some in the home-building industry have decided that it's not just house geeks who want homes that use less energy, materials or harmful chemicals. They say "green building" can be good for business as well as the environment, and they hope to persuade builders to create more eco-friendly houses for the masses.
"The idea is to mainstream it -- do simpler things, less exotic things, but do them over and over again to get a big return," said Nick Tennyson, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Durham and Orange Counties.
Green building covers a wide range of techniques, designs and equipment. It includes gutters that collect rainwater from the roof for irrigating plants, concrete and stone floors that absorb the winter sun's rays to keep homes warm, and ventilation that keeps air free of pollen and humidity.
Tennyson's group will spend the coming months promoting green building among its members and drafting green guidelines based on a set published last fall by the National Association of Home Builders. By next year, it hopes to have the Triangle's first certification system that helps consumers weigh the environmental impacts of new homes.
The effort is part of a budding green movement among mainline home builders, a group not typically seen as friends of the Earth. For seven years, the national builders association has held a green building conference to share the latest on insulation, appliances and other advances.
Another national industry group, The Green Building Initiative, started in January advocating green building approaches that are "practical and affordable."
The emphasis is deliberate. Many "production builders," those who churn out dozens or hundreds of houses a year, are reluctant to change the way they build, particularly if it costs more.
Cost considerations
Craig Morrison of Cimarron Homes in Durham isn't sure his customers will pay extra for better insulation or more energy-efficient designs, even if it saves on maintenance or utility bills. Cimarron builds about 100 houses a year, most less than $200,000 to attract first-time buyers.
"Our buyers have to be much more discriminating about how they spend their money," Morrison said. "Utility bills and other things are on their list, but none of those things matter if they can't get into the house."
Still, builders anticipate growing demand for environmentally benign homes, said John Wear Jr., director of the Catawba College Center for the Environment in Salisbury.
Wear noted that the U.S. Green Building Council, an industry group that developed standards for commercial buildings, is working on a version for homes that will give consumers another way to measure a builder's claims.
"You have to be careful with what we call 'greenwashing,' " Wear said. "That's where you have people that say they're doing something green, when in effect it's just marketing."
Many of the green features in the home Michael Chandler is building for Rebecca Vidra and Aaron Moody are subtle or hidden. Chandler made more room for insulation in the walls by using a wider frame, for example, and the home's 2 1/2-foot eaves will keep the high summer sun from shining directly in.
Vidra and Moody are both ecologists -- she teaches at Duke University, he at UNC-Chapel Hill -- and wanted their new home in the woods west of Chapel Hill to affect the Earth as little as possible. Chandler talked them out of a solar water heater and some of the other more exotic ideas they had gleaned from magazines.
"When you start talking about green building and reading about it, what's out there are some unusual approaches to building a house, like straw bales or used tires," said Vidra, 30. "You don't necessarily hear about the more mainstream approaches to green building."
Vidra and Moody's 2,200-square-foot custom home will cost about $340,000, not including land. Chandler and Williams say it's hard to say how much the green features added to the cost, but they say some, such as wider eaves, easily could work in production homes.
Some production builders are starting to make their homes more environmentally friendly. By next year, all new houses built by Anderson Homes of Raleigh will include insulation and heating and cooling systems that meet tougher energy-efficiency standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program.
Tougher standards
Officials at Anderson, which builds about 325 homes a year, think the tighter energy standards will become the industry norm in coming years, said Steve Dover, who heads the company's purchasing department.
"I'm not sure our customers are necessarily out looking for it," he said. "But once they come to our showrooms, it's something they take into consideration."
Michele Myers, president of M Squared Builders & Designers of Durham, thinks higher energy costs will drive more consumers to consider green building. Myers, who will head the committee that is drafting green guidelines for the Durham and Orange builders group, said the key to getting more builders on board is to emphasize green techniques that won't affect their bottom line.
"I think the vast majority of them are in some way concerned about the environment," Myers said. "I think what builders are interested in is a middle ground, that they know they can still make a living and put their kids through college."
