Southface Journal Fall 2003-ECH Report Card


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EarthCraft House Benchmarks & Report Card 2003

By Chris Truong

EarthCraft House celebrated a milestone this summer with the certification of its 1,000th home. Since November of 1999, over one hundred builders have participated in EarthCraft House training, with many of them building homes ranging from Habitat for Humanity houses to million-dollar mansions. While EarthCraft House’s numbers are impressive, one of the program’s biggest successes has been the ability to raise the bar for quality construction as it trains builders and subcontractors to meet the 2003 Georgia Energy Code. Many builders are going above and beyond the state energy code minimums and building Energy Star homes, which are 30 percent more energy efficient than homes of standard construction.

Another impressive step for EarthCraft House is its expansion outside of Atlanta. With the help of the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority and the Pollution Prevention Assistance Division, EarthCraft House is launching statewide initiatives. Pilot projects are under construction in Macon, Savannah and Pine Mountain, Georgia.

“We want to be able to provide the same level of technical assistance to interested builders throughout the state,” said Mark Newey, technical coordinator for EarthCraft House. One tool Newey uses to reach builders across Georgia is a Builder Listserv1. Newey uses the listserv to distribute technical bulletins on green building subjects such as insulated basements and conditioned crawlspaces.

“Response to the listserv has been excellent,” said Newey. “Within a couple days of the first bulletin, we had several builders follow up with specific questions.”

EarthCraft House standards encourage builders to build homes efficiently on an individual lot, but there are few point-based incentives for community-wide smart growth in the standards. Currently, a committee is working to develop a green communities standard that addresses how communities are developed as well as what is built on the individual lots. This macroscopic approach builds upon EarthCraft House’s holistic approach to construction by examining such requirements as walkability; land and water conservation; tree preservation; surrounding community contact; neighborhood schools, parks and other community services; and light pollution. These and other urban and suburban planning issues are being taken into consideration for the development of the standards. Lisa Denham will be working specifically on the EarthCraft House Communities initiative, see Southface News on page 4 for her biography.

1 To subscribe to the EarthCraft House Builders’ Listserv, please send an e-mail to mail@lists.earthcrafthouse.com and write the message, “subscribe builder’s firstname lastname.”