Business Focus for NAHB’s Green Building Conference

Posted on Apr 8 2009 by Richard Defendorf

BIG YET STILL GREEN. This rendering is of a 3,850-sq.-ft. house – a teardown infill project – that is under construction will be included on the Tour of Green Homes. With this project, Bailey Family Builders aims to show that a high level of green design and energy efficient performance can be built into a fairly sizeable luxury dwelling. Among the components: certified lumber; Dow Chemical’s Styrofoam SIS Board; Demilec Agribalance spray foam on exterior walls; low-e windows; an Eternal Hybrid tankless water heater; a Metlund D’mand circulation pump; and a Manabloc water supply system.

The 11th edition of the conference will feature sessions on the financial, legal, and technical aspects of green homebuilding

The National Green Building Conference, scheduled for May 8-11 in Dallas, will kick off with a tour highlighting the energy efficient features of six Dallas-area homes, then get down to the business and technical sides of green residential construction, the National Association of Home Builders said in a recent conference reminder.

The 30-plus education sessions on the docket for May 9 and 10 include: “From the Basement to the Attic: A Deep-Energy Retrofit” (presented by Peter Yost, BuildingGreen LLC’s own director of residential services), “The Biggest Energy Mistakes Builders & Architects Make Part I,” “Looking Under the Hood: How Top Green Builders Do It,” “National Green Building Certification” (including certification for multifamily, site development, and remodeling projects), “The Down & Clean of Affordable Green,” “Green Building Legal and Liability Issues,” and a marketing session titled “Demonstrating the Home: The Competitive Edge.”

Highlights on the Tour of Green Homes, on May 8, include a near-zero-energy home equipped with a ground-source heat pump that collects heat from six 300-ft. wells, a cutting-edge green design designated an Energy Value Housing Award winner, and a home in the close-in suburbs remodeled to fit the needs of a family looking for sustainable design and easy maintenance.

Financier and wind-power advocate T. Boone Pickens is scheduled to speak at the conference awards dinner on May 8, and Joel Makower, the author of Strategies for the Green Economy, is the keynote speaker on May 9.