While Hawaii has seen a fair number of projects certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Homes program – many of them tied to Actus Lend Lease’s multiunit communities at Hickam Air Force Base – things are just getting going in that state for the National Green Building Standard rating program for residential construction.
Case in point is one 3,600-sq.-ft. home in Kailua, on the southeast shore of Oahu, that a family of longtime islanders built on the foundation of their previous home, which had been destroyed by fire. Retaining much of the building’s 50-year-old foundation, in fact, saved about $100,000 over all, notes a recent Contractormag.com story on the project, and helped bring construction costs in line with the family’s rebuild budget, which was, essentially, the family’s entire insurance settlement.
In broader terms, working within that budget meant that Kailua-based Bossert Builders – a Green Certified Professional under the National Association of Home Builders’ NGBS program – was challenged to build an NGBS-rated home for the cost of a comparably sized home built to code.
Green particulars
The Kailua home ended up with a Bronze rating, which requires a score of 222 to 405 points out of a possible 1,200 available through the NGBS system. Among the building’s energy-conserving features is a solar hot water system with a Heliodyne Helio-Flo heat-transfer appliance and a 120-gallon storage tank; an R-30 roof insulated with lIcynene spray foam; CertainTeed Solaris reflective roof shingles; exterior walls insulated to R-13 with fiberglass EcoBatt; spray foam on all exterior penetrations; and low-e double-pane windows.
The project also scored points for its water catchment system, which includes two 50-gallon tanks filled by rain-gutter runoff; low-flow plumbing fixtures; the use of engineered wood for floor joists, floor sheeting, exterior siding, and roof sheeting; and the preservation of the original foundation.
Given the regional climate and the home’s design and location near the coast, the project team also decided to go without an air conditioner. “Due to extensive insulation and a window placement design that utilizes the trade winds,” Bossert Builders says on its website, “this home keeps cool without an air-conditioning system.”
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A 3,600-sq.-ft. home in Kailua, Oahu, that was among the first homes in Hawaii to qualifty for certification under the National Green Building Standard. Built on the foundation of a home that had been destroyed by fire, the new structure earned a Bronze rating.
