You regularly hear a builder marketing his homes as Energy Star certified, Earth Advantage certified, Green built, High Performance, etc. What does this really mean? In fact there is a term, “Greenwashing”, which defines the practice of disingenuously marketing “green”. If you do your homework, you will find most builders are doing the bare minimums to get there certifications. Simply increasing the efficiency of the HVAC system, adding insulation to increase the insulating factor, increasing the efficiency of windows and introducing fresh into the home which is usually by a fan added to a utility room. This of course is a simplified list, but you get the picture.
Unfortunately, what you don’t hear about very often is the testing and third party inspections that go into these homes to get the certifications. I believe that one of the more important benefits of this performance building process is the scrutiny that the homes go through. The level of quality and performance that is demanded to get even the minimum level of certification forces the builder to build a much better built home than a code built home utilizing the municipality inspectors, ie. City, County and State building inspectors.
Again, when you hear a builder talk about their certification, ask questions. What level of certification do they have for their homes and what measures have they taken during construction. But in the end, even at the minimum level of certification, these homes are built to a much higher standard than most code build homes. This will have a lasting effect on the livability and resale over time because of this. All new homes look great when new however, it’s how they stand the test of time that identifies how well built they actually were.
Marnella Homes is an Oregon based home building company building energy efficeint high performance homes ranging in price from $200k to $400k. 
Thanks for the tips and the great information. It’s human nature to do the bare minimum, but at least as you said, the bare minimum is still stepping up to a higher standard and should be valued as such.
That’s great technology. I haven’t seen the pressure test used before, and I’ve been to a whole lot of home inspections in San Diego! Learned something new here. Thanks.
Great blog and its not suprising that most builders go for the bare minimum which is very shortsighted especially if they get rumbled after reading your blog.
I am glad that there are builders that are actually taking the extra effort for better efficiencies. In the economy that we are in I would expect that most would cut as many corners as possible to keep their cost down and try to sell homes lower than the competition.
Great post. I’ll be forwarding the link to my clients.
We can really fight our environmental problems if even our homes are designed right. But the question is, how much will it cost for a going green home for a whole family living on it.
Thanks for the tips and the great information. It’s human nature to do the bare minimum, but like you said the bare minimum is still stepping up to a higher standard and should be valued as such.