The featured showcase home at the Atlanta Home Show is the Taunton Model by All-American Homes and American Shelter, LLC. The 1,700-square-foot, 3-bedroom home incorporates a number of environmental and energy efficient features to qualify for EarthCraft House.

Newest EarthCraft Homes Go "Systems-built" By Brian Holland, Southface Energy Institute The Spring Atlanta Home Show (April 24-27, 2003) will feature an innovative "systems-built" home, courtesy of local builders and the EarthCraft House program. All-American Homes, in cooperation with its authorized local builder, American Shelter, LLC, will assemble an environmentally friendly home inside the Georgia World Congress Center. The team from EarthCraft House will certify that this first-of-its-kind home meets the program's environmental guidelines.

"Combining systems-built construction with green building techniques is a win-win for consumers and the environment," said Anne Wallace, American Shelter, LLC President. "The showcase house at the Atlanta Home Show will demonstrate how systems-built homes are not only as good as conventional construction, but in many cases better, especially with EarthCraft House certification."

"Systems-built homes using the modular construction approach are often simpler and more effective than traditional residential building," Wallace said. Rather than constructing all the parts of the house on the building site, much of the construction - such as framing, flooring, insulation, and roofing - is completed in a manufacturing facility off-site. The house is then shipped in modules and assembled.

While site-built houses can take between 90 and 120 days to build after pouring the foundation, most systems-built houses are complete in as little as 30 days after delivery to the site.

"Most of the construction is performed in a quality-controlled facility where craftspeople can work consistently and without distraction," Wallace said. And costs associated with materials, time and labor can be significantly reduced, as are construction waste, site disturbance and other environmental costs of the building process. The systems-built homes also meet, and in many cases exceed, national, state and local construction codes.

All-American Homes is the largest systems-built home manufacturer in the country, and their North Carolina sales manager Craig Blanton is enthusiastic about the potential for "green" systems-built homes. "Society is becoming more conscious of the importance of saving energy and the effects of building on the environment," said Blanton. "The future of the systems-built industry is going to see increased involvement in the Energy Star and EarthCraft House programs."

The Energy Star certification ensures that new homes are built 30 percent more energy-efficient than the 1993 Model Energy Code (MEC) and 15 percent more efficient than state building code. With a new Georgia Energy Code recently put into effect, this standard is becoming increasingly useful in rewarding the construction of sustainable homes.

All-American Homes of North Carolina, designing all its homes to meet the Energy Star requirements of the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, offers plans of anywhere from 900 to 3,000 square feet. Blanton believes this development was mostly market-driven. "We had many builders ask us if the homes meet the Energy Star requirements, and we contacted Southface to start gathering information on the Energy Star Home," he said.

More comprehensive is the EarthCraft House standard in metro Atlanta, developed and implemented by the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association in partnership with Southface Energy Institute. Building to EarthCraft House specifications results in many improvements in site treatment, energy and resource efficiency, indoor air quality and other environmental factors. EarthCraft homeowners have reduced utility costs and an improved living environment, while homebuilders see reduced callbacks, product differentiation and increased profits.

In building to green specifications, All-American Homes incorporates many energy-efficient designs and technologies into its products. According to Blanton, all exterior walls are 2"x 6" and exceed code requirements with an R-19 insulation value; some plans even include a ceiling insulation of R-41. When these measures are combined with adequate protection against air infiltration, systems-built homes can meet or surpass the insulative capacity of site-built homes. In fact, greater consistency in air sealing is also common, due to the quality-controlled indoor manufacturing environment associated with systems-built home construction.

Other energy-efficient measures utilized by All-American Homes are standard installation of low-emissivity (low-E) windows that reduce solar heat gain without interrupting the passage of beneficial daylight. In addition, conditioned, insulated crawlspaces that reduce the temperature differential between the crawlspace and first floor eliminate the need for floor insulation. With the technical assistance of Southface staff, these improvements in energy-efficiency also allowed heating and air conditioning equipment to be downsized. Ultimately, the environmentally sustainable systems-built home can be as affordable and attractive as standard site-built homes. Blanton said All-American Homes aims "to build a home that meets high standards for safety, durability, comfort and energy efficiency."

American Shelter, LLC, an Atlanta All-American authorized builder, goes above and beyond the requirements set forth by All-American Homes by building all its new homes not only Energy Star but also to EarthCraft House standards. The company is the first systems-built homebuilder to incorporate the sustainable prescriptions of EarthCraft House into its construction. American Shelter will be building nine new All American/EarthCraft House certified homes at its Dekalb County development, Sky Haven Heights. Each of these new homes will be custom designs by Daniel M. Martin, AIA of Bainbridge & Martin Architects. Wallace said, "We anticipate that these new homes will sell quickly because of all their advantages including aesthetic and economic appeal as well as superior quality, energy efficiency, EarthCraft House certification and large wooded lots in an intown location."

The Atlanta Home Show exhibit from Southface features our best kept secret… our staff.