Real Estate Agencies

Photo Gallery: Green homes being built in Corona

Among the strategies Meritage Homes puts into action when building what might be the most energy-efficient homes in the country: Modify the old-fashioned defense and put a good modern offense on the field.

Take the exchange of warm and cold air, the “first and largest source of energy waste,” according to C. R. Herro, vice president for environmental affairs in Meritage’s Scottsdale, Ariz., office. “For the last 100 years, it’s all been about R-value to control conduction. But the R-value is actually a very small source of the energy loss.”

Herro maintains that the defensive playbook of building barriers to keep cold air out during the winter and in during the summer, using fiberglass or blown in cellulose insulation, doesn’t work. Because of gaps and leaks throughout, the entire volume of a house’s air is unnecessarily “reconditioned” by the heating or cooling unit 75 times a day.

At Meritage’s gated community that’s just broken ground off Indian Truck Trail, nestled in the Cleveland National Forest south of Corona, a deliberately deconstructed house, exposing all the building techniques to prospective homebuyers, demonstrates the way various insulations with the same R-value rating allows more or less air to pass through it.

“It’s as if the contents of my head are on these ‘leafs’ spread around the house,” Herro laughs, pointing out signage explaining the home’s energy-saving features. “Until you pull it apart and show people the difference, they can’t make an informed decision.” After that, he contends, most buyers demand more responsible home building.

Meritage’s play: Spray a gummy polyurethane substance then use steam to blow it out like shaving cream. After 90 seconds of curing, there’s an air-tight barrier for a 200 percent improvement in air exchange. Going further, besting whole-house fans as a remedy for typically 130-degree attics, instead of attic venting and insulating above the ceiling, Meritage builders spray insulate the underside of the roof, then the attic space is kept at 80 degrees, saving a typical10 percent energy waste.

To avoid the feeling of living in a stale-air bubble, Meritage employs a High Efficient Air Management System with 14 SEER air conditioner and jump ducts. The use of low VOC materials in the interior–including formaldehyde-free carpeting–create interiors that require less venting, especially when the house is new. The resulting home ends up almost incidentally 4,000 times quieter than conventional construction, Herro says, as a test outside of Nellis Air Force Base proved.

Outside, where half of a household’s water is expended on landscaping (and half of that is wasted) a smart irrigation system automatically adjusts to temperature, sunlight and rainfall.

The business plan opens energy efficiency to the middle class rather than the wealthy custom-home buyer willing to pay a premium, Herro says. So rather than emphasizing innovations that cost buyers more than they’ll ever make back on energy savings, Meritage benchmarks a return of $2 in homeowner energy savings for every dollar spent on greening the home.

Energy savings is likely to be a significant factor in years to come. Herro says the nationwide trend forecasts a five percent per year total utility cost increase, even in California where energy and water costs are already among the highest in the nation. “So if your energy saving is $120 a month today, it is $280 in 10 years and $380 a month in 20 years,” says Herro. “Over the lifetime of the home 30 years, that’s over $100,000 in just electricity.”

Building the homes requires no extraordinary effort over conventional construction, Herro says. The largest paradigm shift involved the company’s partnership with the building trades, with everything from the framing to the windows being sourced differently.

“We work with different suppliers,” says Herro, “those focused on innovation, on what’s the next opportunity in the market. Those who are just hunkering down to survive aren’t willing to take this journey with us. It’s the opportunity to make a lot of nickels versus a quarter once in awhile, to capture a market share that doesn’t exist.”

Consumers are less reluctant, Herro says. Meritage has seen “a genuine, quantifiable difference in response” from the market to energy-efficient homes. Apples-to-apples comparisons of comparable projects show two to three times more sales activity than in conventional construction, he says.

The Corona homes will be built to order (from three plans and various sizes) at a cost in the high $300,000 to low $400,000 range. Meritage will pitch cost of ownership to compete against the exaggerated ratio of resales to new homes that has shifted in the current housing crunch from a normal 3 out of 4 to 9 out of 10.

“With the economy the way it is, these days if you’re building a new home, you’re competing against distressed home sales,” Herro says. “So the builder is either stripping everything away so that it becomes a commodity, or adding value by bringing something new to the marketplace. We’re doing the latter.”

“You start to hate your own home,” Herro says, pressing his hand to a sunlit yet remarkably cool window. “Unless you have a cool Craftsman built in the ’30s, it’s tough to live in a energy pig.”