Publisher’s Note: January/February 2021

Hello Readers in Print and online,

I hope your 2021 is off to a great beginning. Winter is in full swing and weather plays a big role in construction. During snow days we have other things to do managing our businesses. Among them is marketing. To that end, the virtual IBSx event is coming up Feb. 9 to 12. Our team is looking forward to participating in the IBSx with KBIS and reporting back to you on the new and interesting things we discover there. We will be updating the website daily at www.greenhomebuildermag.com, so please check back periodically for updates. If you are not already receiving our latest e-newsletter www.greenhomebytes.com, your subscription as a home building professional is complimentary, just like the magazine.

High performance home building is a big subject, covering many aspects of home building including architecture, engineering and interior design. This also includes landscaping, irrigation design, indoor air quality, smart home technology, construction planning, materials selection, costs, budgeting, marketing and installation.

Certifying your projects is at the very heart of high-performance home building. We are pleased to support NGBS, USGBC and the DOE programs, among several other certifying agencies. When your new homes are certified, a third party agency is standing behind them, advising your customers that you have met the strict requirements for their program. This speaks to your integrity and character as a builder. This is an important step that a lot of builders still don’t take. If you are going to go through the trouble to build beyond code, being certified, having that plaque on your wall and that stamp on your project is a step worth taking.

We are in pre-development with the next chapter of our own high performance demonstration home project, The ABC Green Home 5.0. We are most grateful to have the leadership of Art and John Danielian from multiple award-winning Irvine, Calif. based Danielian Associates, AIA as the stewards and strong leaders of our design team. Jillian Pritchard Cooke from DES-YN and Wellness Within Your Walls is also on board as our interior design and IAQ leader. The development team has spent over a year looking at suitable real estate. We are very happy to be joining some very famous home builders in the Lake Elsinore, Calif. new homes market: DR Horton, K Hovnanian, Pardee Homes, Meritage and William Lyon Homes. The new Lowes and Home Depot, the additional 15 Freeway off ramps, the restaurants, hospitality, recreation, and not to mention the beautiful lake, speak to the growth in this market and make this an ideal location for our next build. We are proud to join our much larger and inspirational builder colleagues in this growing market. We look forward to sharing the process with you and will be showcasing our partners in these pages, as well as within Builder and Developer as well.

We are transitioning the project website, www.abcgreenhome.com, to the new build, so please keep checking back for updates. We will be placing our live cams on the job site, so you can keep an eye on us while we build our next LEED Platinum, ZNE project. More details to follow. Stay safe, please wear your mask and thank you for the privilege of your readership.

I leave you on the cold and snowy southern California Friday with this thought. This is The ABC Green Home 4.0, in Crestline, Calif. which we completed in February 2020. This morning at 7 a.m., the outside air temperature was 29 degrees Fahrenheit. However the thermostats inside the home showed the indoor air temperature to be 61 degrees. The heating equipment is turned off. Building science at work.