(PRWEB) June 7, 2006 -- Which new home is the greenest in all the land?
“ And my highest electric bill was $35. ”
According to the U.S. Green Building Council, that honor belongs to a super-efficient custom home recently completed in Freeport, Maine.
Master builder Peter Taggart, President of Taggart Construction, submitted the home for certification under USGBC’s “LEED for Homes” pilot program, and earned a silver rating—the highest awarded to any home since the program’s conception.
“To my knowledge, just one other home in the country has achieved LEED certification,” Taggart says, “And that one got just the standard certification. Our project made the silver level.”
Designed by Curt Jensch, the 2,300-sq. ft contemporary home overlooks rolling fields and forest near Freeport, Maine—a town famous as the headquarters of the L.L. Bean Company.
This is a home made to minimize the impacts of Maine’s long winters, with super-insulated walls, radiant floor heating, passive solar heat and a 3 kilowatt solar power grid, mounted on a durable metal roof made with recycled steel. But those are only the most visible eco-friendly attributes. A lot of the “green” action happens out of sight—but never out of Peter Taggart’s mind.
“Some of the most important details of green construction will never be seen,” Taggart says. “That’s why this LEED certification is rewarding. It takes into account all the other work we do all the time to reduce our impact on the environment, at the same time making the home more comfortable.
“You can’t see the radiant floor heating, or the fresh air system, or the VOC-free paints that don’t pollute the indoor air,” he adds. “You might not notice how carefully we avoided tree removal and kept excavation to a minimum. But the LEEDS certification recognizes the value in those choices. They reward you for doing the right thing.”
Taggart notes that he entered the LEEDs program as an afterthought. He has been building and renovating with the environment in mind since the late 1970s. Those years of experience are built into the Freeport Home, giving it what it needed to win silver certification from the USGBC.
“I recently started asking our staff to divide up all waste from the job site and sorting it into bins for recycling,” the builder adds. “There’s always something a little more you can do.”
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Many builders and remodelers claim to build "green" homes, but custom builder Peter Taggart says a lot of so-called green building is simply "greenwashing.
“They’ll put in a bamboo or cork floor and say the home is green,” Taggart notes. “But you really have to look at systems, if you want to build environmentally. That’s not as sexy, but it’s how a green house is built.”
Gov. John Baldacci: Maine’s Governor--
John Baldacci has become a strong advocate for green builders such as Taggart Construction.
“I’m proud that Maine is again taking the lead in addressing energy issues,” he says, “Anything we can do to reduce energy expenses now will pay dividends in the future.”
Mort Panish, the Freeport home’s owner--
“We’ve been here for one winter, and our heating bills were less than $1000, even with the high prices,” says homeowner Mort Panish. “That’s a third of what most people pay to heat a house this size. And my highest electric bill was $35. Usually it’s a lot lower than that.”
“We believe it’s important to be kind to the environment. Two of our sons live in solar houses.
At first, we didn’t buy into it, but after we visited their homes, we realized we could follow that path without having to sacrifice things we love in our old house, like instant hot water, and a freezer.”
Other Resources
Art: High-Res images available. See a photo gallery here:
http://www.tagcon.com/recent.php
Definitions: LEED stands for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” The USGBC website has more info on the LEED for Homes program:
http://www.usgbc.org/leedhomes
