Robert Jenson, The Jenson Group
Tyler Construction & Development's green spec home in the La…
When John Curtis began work on a 9,318-square-foot house in Las Vegas, he and his family intended to live in it for a few years before selling it. But when the economy faltered, John and his wife, Ronell, co-owners of Tyler Construction & Development, needed to reassess the situation.
Having just secured the construction loan for the project when economic conditions began to tank, Curtis admits he was panic-stricken for a while. A sharp drop in the worth of their existing home also presented the Curtises with a decision: sell their current home at about half its value or remain in it and build the luxurious new home and sell it. They decided to remain in their existing home and forged ahead with the project as a spec home for sale. Luckily, the high-end community they had selected to build in had better retained its value.
“I thought, ‘Well, you can’t give the money back to the bank.’ So I decided to just keep my head down and build it better than anybody else could,” Curtis says.
“Better” in this case equated to “greener” for Tyler Construction, which already had been incorporating energy-efficient systems and practices into some of its homes. With this project, however, the company went far beyond its previous efforts and took a more holistic approach to green building by addressing water efficiency, occupant comfort, and indoor air quality along with structural durability and energy-efficient performance.
Curtis designed and built the spec home to meet the requirements of the Masco Home Services Environments for Living (EFL) program’s Diamond* level certification, which addresses energy consumption, water conservation, indoor air quality, and occupant comfort and also ensures that a home’s heating and cooling systems perform at least 50 percent better than code.
Las Vegas is far better known for its excesses than for environmental restraint or sustainable attitudes, but green building is catching on even in Sin City. Production home builder Pulte, for example, has built homes in several Las Vegas neighborhoods to meet the requirements of the EFL program, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Builders’ Challenge program, and LEED for Homes Platinum certification.
Noting the success of other local builders going green, as well as the growing interest among home buyers, Curtis decided this was the perfect opportunity to enter the market himself and learn how to build in a much more sustainable way.
“As we started to build, I started to see the different ways that you do things, and now I wouldn’t build another house any other way,” he says, even considering the 1 percent to 2 percent additional cost incurred in part by the necessary systems engineering, performance reviews and inspections, and certification.
“It was a bit more time-consuming and cost me a bit more interest on my loan, but not that much more. The extra benefits far outweigh the extra cost,” Curtis adds.
