Going 'green': function and form key to new home construction with environment and energy savings in forefront.

Fairbanks builder Mike Musick started preaching about "green" building before anyone had coined the phrase.

"Since the mid-1970s, I've been building as green as I could; I just didn't call it green," he said.

Through the years, he has worked with the Cooperative Extension service in Fairbanks, the Alaska Craftsman Home program, the Alaska Health House, the Alaska Building Science Network and the Cold Climate Housing Research Center, all in the interest of developing and teaching better building techniques.

Thus, Musick is a natural to bring a new program to Alaska. Under his leadership, the Interior Alaska Building Association has become one of 15 homebuilders associations nationwide to promote a Green Building Initiative. The program enables builders to tap a growing market by certifying green-built homes.

DEFINING GREEN

The first challenge in certifying a house as green is defining the term.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about this new green building," said homebuilder Thorsten Chlupp, who owns REINA Alaska and helped Musick develop the local Green Building Initiative. "It's not just about energy and it's not just about having paint that doesn't have any chemicals that cause trouble." Instead, green building is much more comprehensive. "Green building starts from the beginning, from the planning phase," he said. "It's a whole building process."

As green builders design a house, they think about both the indoor and outdoor environment. Thus, green building embraces everything from water and energy efficiency to thoughtful site design to adequate ventilation to low toxicity in paints and glues.

To help builders put all the pieces together, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) developed a set of guidelines for green building. Points are awarded for incorporating various elements from seven categories: lot design, preparation and development; resource efficiency; energy efficiency; water efficiency; indoor environmental quality; operation, maintenance and homeowner education; and global impact. Houses that earn a minimum number of points are certified bronze. Extra-green houses can earn a higher level of silver or gold certification.

The national guidelines provide a starting point for local Green Building Initiatives, who can modify the point system to suit local conditions. For instance, the Interior Alaska Green Building Initiative awards extra points for using materials produced within 500 miles. The Alaska guidelines also include a fourth level of certification, platinum, to encourage greater energy efficiency.

"The main difference is that the energy use should be 50 percent less than the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC)," Musick said. "Builders get a federal tax write-off for being 50 percent more rigorous than the IECC. The NAHB guidelines topped out at 40 percent, so we decided it's easy enough to go that extra 10 percent. It's more of a carrot for the builders."

GETTING THE WORD OUT

To teach builders about the program, green building workshops have been held in Anchorage, Juneau and Fairbanks, with more coming up. Builders earn continuing education units for attendance, which helps the program reach people who might not otherwise be interested.

"Some builders are only there for the credits, but even so it will rub off. And they are part of the dialogue, too," Musick said. The program will also train energy raters to provide third-party verification that the guidelines were met.

Beyond the builders and raters, education efforts will extend to everyone involved in home building.

"We have to educate all parts of the equation, which includes builders, appraisers, consumers, bankers and whomever else might be affecting the industry," Musick said.

Chlupp emphasized the importance of educating the salespeople.

"Realtors are going to be a huge thing," he said. "A realtor who sells the product has to realize the difference. The professionals need to be educated first so we can from there educate the public." Public education will be crucial to helping this initiative take off. Before the program can build more green houses, they have to build demand. And yet many of the advances in a green building are invisible to the prospective buyer.

"As one example, all we do now is frame 24 inches on center, instead of 16 inches on center," Chlupp said. The new method is structurally sound, meets code requirements, saves lumber and labor costs, and allows for much better insulation. However, the finished house looks identical to one built using the old method. Likewise, new methods of attaching sheetrock and using blown-in insulation in place of batts also contribute to a more comfortable, energy-efficient house, but the potential buyer can't see the lack of cold spots or the lower heating and cooling bills when deciding which home to buy.

"It's a lot of little things, details which nobody ever sees," Chlupp said. "You walk into a house and it looks the same. It looks nice, the paint is nice, you like the countertop. What is in the wall and what is in the whole system is a totally different story. That's the hard part to sell."

As homebuyers and builders become aware of green building, they'll find no shortage of technology waiting to meet the demand.

"You can get so much more advanced heating systems in Europe than you can here," said Chlupp, who grew up in Germany. "That's just pretty amazing to me, if you think about it. This is America; we should be leading in all of this."

Lighting is another area in which the technology has advanced far beyond what is typically installed.

"There is so much new technology out, which hardly anybody takes advantage of," Chlupp said. "We have to special order most of our lighting kits, because no one stocks this stuff. It saves 60 percent to 80 percent on electric bills."

However, once again, education will be key to increasing demand. Chlupp said clients often tell him they don't like fluorescent lighting, but then he walks them through a house full of fluorescents.

"They don't see a difference," he said.

OTHER GREEN BUILDING PROGRAMS

The Green Building Initiative isn't the first green building program in Alaska. LEED, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, also uses a point system to certify green buildings. LEED began with commercial buildings, but recently started a homes program as well. Mechanical engineer Chris Miller sees any potential competition between the two programs as healthy.

"It may compete but that is good," said Miller, who is LEED-accredited and works mainly on commercial projects for Design Alaska. "LEED is very complicated. If the homebuilders can simplify the process to make it more repeatable and easier for people to understand, that can only help."

Musick expects the Green Building Initiative to have a broader appeal than LEED-Homes will.

"Who I think will be using LEED-Homes will be high-end builders. I'm trying to encourage mainstream homebuilders," he said. "I see a little bit different market in terms of who is going to be building these green homes by the NAHB standards but they are both good. I have no criticism of either."

Another program that addresses energy efficiency in the state is the Alaska Housing Finance Corp.'s 5-star program. Energy-efficient houses qualify for mortgages with lower interest rates. Chlupp sees the AHFC program as just a starting point.

"We need a 6-star, a new upgrade to it," he said. "These standards were developed in the mid-1980s, and we're not in the mid-1980s anymore. We have a lot of new building techniques, materials and knowledge, and if you combine all of that, there is nothing to it to build a 5-star-plus home."

THROUGHOUT THE STATE

Other homebuilders associations around Alaska are interested in the Green Building Initiative concept, especially in the South and Southeast. As each of them explores the idea, they will develop their own green building guidelines. For example, the Southeast program will be tailored for the warmer, wetter climate there.

As consumer and homebuilder interest in green building grows, Musick will continue to put his passion for the cause to work. "I'm a missionary when it comes to green," he said.