Drew Smith, president of Two Trails Inc. in Sarasota, was the green consultant for the 2013 edition of The New American Home, the National Association of Home Builders' demonstration showhouse, built each year near the site of the annual International Builders Show. This year, IBS is meeting in Las Vegas. The house is rated at the highest level, "Emerald," under the NAHB's National Green Building Standard, as well as LEED for Homes-Platinum by the U.S. Green Building Council. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 1-21-2013.
Speaking witih Drew Smith of Sarasota's Two Trails Inc. at the 2013 "New American Home" in Las Vegas on Jan. 22. This is the third TNAH for which Smith has consulted, as well as verified its green performance. He will perform the same functions for the 2014 TNAH, also in Las Vegas. The New American Home is built each year by the National Association of Home Builders for the International Builders Show.
Q. What are the green standards to which this house is built?
A. LEED for Homes-Platinum and NAHB-National Green Building Standard-Emerald. LEED (Leadershipt in Energy and Environmental Design, the standard of the U.S. Green Building Council) is definitely more difficult to achieve when you get to the Platinum level. I equate LEED-Gold to Emerald in National Green Building Standard.
Q. You have spent a lot of time on this project, making at least six trips to Las Vegas from Sarasota. Why do you do it?
A. It is a great program not only for us, but also we like to be able to do something to give back, and we enjoy working with the NAHB Research Center. This keeps us involved with leading-edge technology, as well as being able to showcase what we do on a national basis. Technology is evolving so fast we can hardly keep up with it.
Q. Is the Research Center teaching you, or are you teaching them?
A. I am teaching them. The reason they have had us involved is they literally can be hands-off. They turn the house over to me and we handle working with the builder, so there is very little involvement with them. We use them as a sounding board. They kind of keep track of what we are doing. They are always there for technical advice if we need it, but we have been able to pretty much run the program. They are happy with us because we are meeting their goals. We are getting Emerald certification. If we weren’t achieving that, then there would be an issue. But because we can work with the builder from day one, and ensure that they are going to get there and have the best of the best, the NAHB Research Center doesn’t have to worry.
Q. What is the purpose of The New American Home?
A. The main focus of the house is to educate as many people as possible. The house will be loaded with tours all week, and builders groups from around the world will tour the house. They can take the technology and ideas, and the concept of the show house, back to their countries for their shows. There is sharing between countries. Top custom builders from around the country visited.
Q. The house has 6,700 square feet of area. Why so large?
A. Some of it is that the location demands certain-sized houses. Last year’s house in Winter Park was a little more conservative, at 4,300 square feet. We would like to see them go small because that is more affordable product, but out here with the Vegas market, it is either the very low end or it is the $2 million-plus house. This builder is a high-end builder and this is a high-end subdivision.
Serving two masters? One of two master bedrooms in the 2013 edition of The New American Home, the National Association of Home Builders' demonstration showhouse in Las Vegas. The house has unusual fireplaces. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 1-21-2013.
Q. What features of the house stand out to you?
A. You see some unique fireplaces throughout the houses. New appliances from Gaggenau. The technology with the AC is gas-fired, with 8-ton and 16-ton units outside.
Also, what is inside space and outside space – that was a big factor for this house. Bringing the outside in. Some of the reasoning for the amount of AC is to allow for the zoning. It can be zoned so the master suite can be closed off and be heated while the rest of the house is open. The center bridge section of the house can be open or closed, and has its own zone. Every section of the house can be cordoned off and be air-conditioned or heated, depending on the climate.
A lot of the exterior themes carry on to the inside. Iy is hard to tell where the inside ends and the outside begins.
The house has large overhangs, so they considered shading. All the windows have shading where necessary. We have very efficient windows, a real tight envelope, spray foam in the attic and walls. The windows are properly spaced and you see a lot of daylighting. If you come in here in the daytime, you don’t need any lights on.
The rice-husk decking material is also on the wall (in the courtyard), and on the master bedroom wall inside.
The cultured stone in the kitchen is mounted over framing. The basement level has ICF (insulated concrete form) walls.
Q. What are the green features?
A. There is 11.5 kilowatts of photovoltaic panels, supplying electricity for half the needs of the house; a solar-water backup tank and multiple Rinnai tankless heaters. (Also, spray foam insulation, low-e insulated windows, Energy Star appliances, low-flow plumbing fixtures, micro-irrigation in the landscape that response to climate conditions.)
The outstanding green feature is the passive design, the shading, windows in the right place. It is not a house of many Band-Aids to get to certification.
The house is very tight: It has 0.2 air exchanges per hour. A 1980s house would be 15. Recent houses would be 5 or 6. Last year, the New American Home was 0.7 Sierra Pacific windows and doors, along with being totally cocooned with spra- foam insulation makes the difference. We used six energy recovery ventilators to bring fresh air in to a comfort level.
Q. The Nevada climate is a very different challenge for you?
A. The extremes – you have the very cold to very hot out here. Humidity is 40 percent or lower. They brought so much water into the house (with several swimming or wading pools). That will help in the summer to bring a little bit of humidity into the house.
We have seen our business and the interest in green grow exponentially. We had no slowdown in our business. We just reached the 1,000-house mark of green houses under construction. The incentive among buyers is to save money.
