The pool and lounging area of the 2013 edition of The New American Home, the National Association of Home Builders' demonstration showhouse in Las Vegas. The house is designed to blur the lines between interior and exterior spaces. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 1-21-2013.
“A submarine above ground.” That’s what Drew Smith told the subcontractors to envision when they were building “The New American Home” here for the National Association of Home Builders.
Smith, of Sarasota, was the green-building consultant for the project. Speaking at the International Builders Show here Wednesday, Smith said he told the tradespeople who were installing the wall systems, roof, doors and windows — anything that could allow air to get into and outside of the house — to “build it so there is no air leakage.”
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They came thisclose. The house is the tightest Smith has seen in his career as a consultant and third-party verifier. It has an air-exchange rate of 0.2 air changes per hour, a measurement of leakage.
“A 1980s house would have 15 air changes per hour,” said Smith. “Newer houses would be 5 or 6.” Last year’s New American Home in Winter Park, Fla., had a rate of 0.7 changes per hour.
“Sierra Pacific windows and doors, along with the house being totally cocooned with spray-foam insulation, make all the difference,” said Smith.
A waterfall doubles as a video display screen on which images are projected at the 2013 edition of The New American Home. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 1-21-2013.
Green-rated at the highest levels for the National Green Building Standard (Emerald) and LEED for Homes (Platinum), the house has a HERS rating of 33, nearly 70 percent more efficient than the code-minium rating of 100.
About half of the house’s electricity is generated by solar energy collected by 11.5 kilowatts of photovoltaic panels on the roof. It has a solar-heated backup water tank and multiple gas-fired tankless water heaters.
But Smith said the house’s outstanding green feature is its “passive design, the shading, having windows in the right place.”
Green as it is, at 6,700 square feet The New American Home may have the average American consumer wondering just what the builder is trying to prove.
Actually, 35-year-old Tyler Jones of Blue Heron, a home building company here, did just what he always does — build luxury residences of up to 15,000 square feet for all-cash buyers seeking the good life, and great views of Sin City, in the hills south of town. This house, with “desert contemporary” architecture, will sell eventually for perhaps $4.5 million, said Jones.
The design/build team for the 2013 New American Home in Las Vegas: From left, Lyndsay Janssen, interior design, Blue Heron Inc.; Michael Gardner, architect, Blue Heron Inc.; Tyler Jones, principal, Blue Heron Inc.; Greg Simmons, technology systems, Eagle Sentry; Drew Smith, green consulting/verifying, Two Trails Inc., Sarasota. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 1-23-2013.
It’s the NAHB that needs big houses. “The New American Home is a showcase house,” said Tucker Bernard of the NAHB. “This house isn’t meant to be reproduced, even though it will be in the Vegas market.”
In fact, The New American Home, unveiled each year near the site of the IBS, is a canvas on which building product manufacturers can display their newest wares, including green features that include a gas-fired heating and air-conditioning system, tankless water heating, photovoltaic panels, spray-foam insulation and weather-sensitive irrigation.
The main living room opens onto the kitchen of the 2013 edition of The New American Home. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 1-21-2013.
“There is nothing really custom in this house — it has off-the-shelf products that anybody can buy,” said Bernard, executive director of the National Council for the Housing Industry, “the leading suppliers of NAHB.”
“We just may use them in different applications — even the manufacturers don’t know how we are using their products. For example, the siding (in the courtyard) is a rice-and-polymer composition that was made as a decking. We took it and reused it as siding.
“This is a smorgasbord, a buffet,” for the builders to view, said Bernard. “You can pick and choose what you want from this house.”
