High Performance Homes at No More Cost

The goal of the Proud Green Home and Proud Green Building sites is to educate the entire marketplace – homeowners and building professionals in both the home and commercial building industry. The vision is to “inspire people to adopt these principles and convey logic of supporting high performance homes and buildings and benefits of doing so.”

Our guest, Bob Fincher, is the CEO and publisher at Sustainable Community Media, LLC and operates 2 media web sites – Proud Green Home and Proud Green Building.

First, a big thank you to the Green Gab podcast family – Mike of 2 Guys Talking Network, Sam of Shock City Studios in St. Louis, Jane – our business manager and Steph – our social media coordinator. None of this would happen without you all.

High performance, green and sustainable building is winning proposition for everyone!

Bob has worked with thousands of builders over his career and is vested in their success. His goal with Proud Green Home is to get re-involved with his love of architecture and the trades. He also shares Marla and Tony’s love of helping to find ways to inspire people and to think outside the box.

So why are some builders resisting high performance, green and sustainable building when it seems like a winning proposition for everyone?

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Builders bring thousands of parts and pieces of highly irregular stuff on an irregular lot and have them come together perfectly with a lot of trade contractors and disciplines. And then, they do this for people building their dream home and biggest investment of their lives.

To make this work, builders create and use highly disciplined systems and organization to be successful. This deep commitment to structure (and what they know works) also resists change – understandably.

Even so, there are an increasing number of builders adopting high performance, green and sustainable building. As the market is moving homes to higher performance, builders are innovating and opening their minds to new strategies. And there is much greater acceptance of green, high performance and sustainable homes, especially as building codes and state mandates include more of these practices and requirements.

Certification programs are playing a larger part of how to build and market and back up the performance of homes

Bob recalls working in Florida years ago, when a few builders in every major market in Florida created much more exciting kitchens and master baths. Now that the excitement was in the market (and well received), other builders followed suit within a few years. High performance and green building appears to be following the same path. While home buyers and customers may not know what we, the industry, mean by high performance or green, if we listen to what they really want in their homes, it is often exactly the benefits offered by green and high performance homes.

The principles of green and high performance homes and their benefits

Trends are impacting high performance, green homes. Even in areas or cases where builders believe no one wants green since no one is asking for it, there are strong marketplace clues that home buyers and owners want the benefits of what high performance, green provides. The extent to which a builder accepts or rejects high performance and green homes often has to do with their own biases rather than being open-minded to the trends in the market.

How professionals in the home and building industry communicate makes a big impact. These professionals need the confidence and ability to communicate the principles of green and high performance homes and their benefits. While it can get scary to listen to what home buyers and customers really want, it is needed to truly connect with what they want and deliver it. Or take that a step further and follow the heart of your business to connect with like-minded people as clients and business allies. The principles of green and high performance homes and their benefits . While we don’t know of a study on how much medical costs are saved or avoided, it is hard to put value on that health.

Proud Green Home and Proud Green Buildings worked in concert with EEBA to produce the white paper “High Performance Homes at No More Cost. This white paper was produced to help the marketplace understand the whole value proposition of high performance. This is a different perspective as much of the current thinking is around a high-performance house being cost justified. Through re-imagining a home or cost shifting, it is possible to produce extraordinary homes without  any more cost. There is a widely-held myth that green homes are expensive and cost more to build. Yet there are many successful builders throughout US who have re-imagined their homes to build high performance, green homes with a budget that is not more than standard traditional home. Imagine how much more successful they can be. They don’t need to ask more for these homes, although they may.

To learn more about how to do this, the white paper is available on the Proud Green Home web site.  https://www.proudgreenhome.com/whitepapers/high-performance-homes-no-more-cost/

You can reach Bob Fincher at Proud Green Homes Bob@ProudGreenHome.com

For more information about green homes and green living, check out www.GreenHomeCoach.com.

Every week on iTunes and The Everyday Green Home Podcast, get the gab with us as we share what we’ve done, as well as tips for greening up your home, your job, your family and your life! Get in on the gab for why green matters – to you, your family and friends and your community.

For more information about the show email us at:  Marla at marla@thegreenhomecoach.com or Tony at tpratte@thesoundroom.com.

I’d love to speak at your next event – for ideas check out my speaking information.  Thank you and have a blessed day!