Four single-family homes earned awards at the National Association of Home Builders’ National Green Building Conference, held this month in Raleigh, North Carolina. The builder and designer of one of the homes, which won in the affordable/custom category, provided GBA with a few details about its construction and materials.

Called The Cottage, the 1900-sq.-ft. house, completed in May 2009, earned an Emerald rating based on NAHB’s National Green Building Standard. The project builder, JR Construction Building & Design, based in Petoskey, Indiana, where the two-bedroom/two-and-a-half-bath house is located, says it is the company’s first green home and among the first single-family houses in the country to earn an Emerald rating.

A performance guarantee

The foundation was insulated to R-20, the walls to R-24, and the roof to R-40. The project includes a ground-source heat pump that, the builder says, is designed to operate with a coefficient of performance (COP) of 5. A manifold plumbing system also was installed to help conserve water and reduce heat loss. The house landed a HERS index rating of just under 40. JR Construction was confident enough in the home’s owner-occupied performance to guarantee coverage of its heating and cooling costs in excess of $59 a month.

Other features were aimed at increasing the home’s durability (50-year siding, and standing-seam metal roofs on the front and back porches) and its use of sustainable materials (sustainably harvested ipe for decking, and bamboo for interior flooring).

Other award winners

In all, 15 builders, remodelers, and other industry professionals were honored at the National Green Building Conference, including those responsible for three other single-family projects: Charityworks Greenhouse, a custom/luxury home designed by Washington, D.C.-based Cunningham| Quill Architects; Model NOMG4, a production/luxury home in Marietta, Georgia, built by New World Home; and Rosewood Hills, a production/affordable project built by Mungo Construction of Columbia, South Carolina.

Awards also went to multifamily projects Circle at Concord Mills in Concord, North Carolina (developed by Crescent Resources, which won in the luxury category); the Wingate Manor apartment complex in Shiloh, Illinois (Gundaker Commercial Group, in the affordable category); and the Fishhawk Ranch residential subdivision in Lithia, Florida (Newland Communities, which took the Green Development of the Year award).

Among advocacy-award winners, remodeler Philip Beere of Green Street Development in Phoenix took the Green Remodeling Project of the Year and Green Remodeling Advocate of the Year awards; builder and GBA Advisor Michael Chandler, of Chandler Design-Build, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was honored as the Builder Advocate of the Year; Pardee Homes of Los Angeles was named Corporate Advocate of the Year; and Individual Advocate of the Year honors went to John Barrows of Wainscott, New York.

The State/Local Government Advocate of the Year award went to Platte County, Missouri, for its innovative green incentive programs, NAHB says. The Home Builders Association of Delaware Green Building Council was named the New Green Building Program of the Year, while the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area Green Home Builders of the Triangle, which played host to the conference, took Program of the Year honors.