Annual Green Home Tour Nearing Kick Off

DURHAM, N.C. - April 25, 2014 - PRLog -- Green Home Builders of the Triangle (GHBT) presents the 2014 Green Home Tour May 3 – 4 and May 10 – 11, noon – 5:00 pm, at new and remodeled green certified homes throughout the area. In itsninth year of inviting the public to view green building practices and materials, this free self-guided GHBT event showcases 30 excellent examples of certified green home construction. Each home in the tour is inspected and third-party verified, making sure each home meets the minimum certification requirements established by the National Green Building Standard (NGBS). Green Home Builders of the Triangle is a joint council of the Home Builders Associations (HBAs) of Durham, Orange and Chatham Counties and of Raleigh-Wake County.

With today’s home buyers looking for healthy, efficient, cost-effective homes, green builders are poised to fulfill these consumer needs. The Tour showcases a diverse collection of certified green new and remodeled homes in this annual open house, with a building professional onsite at each home to answer questions and present the home’s green features. The tour homes may be in various stages of construction or owner-occupied. This is a unique opportunity to see first-hand some of the innovative green building practices at work in our area.

Green Building is a whole house approach to new home and remodeling construction that must meet certain standards as defined by NGBS in six differ­ent major categories including: site and lot design and development, resource efficiency, energy efficiency, water efficiency, indoor envi­ronment and air quality, and the homeowner’s education about the operation of the home and features. “In each of these categories, our builders must meet certain mandatory requirements and then select from a multitude of additional options to achieve a certain baseline of points in order to qualify the home or remodel project as Green Built,” says Mitch Barron, 2014 GHBT Chair. “This is not just a matter of simply meeting building and energy codes, or doing just a few ‘green’ features, but rather it is a compre­hensive and systematic approach to ensure that the ‘whole house’ is Green Built.”

“One of the most important compo­nents of our green building program is that the home must be reviewed, inspected and verified by a profes­sionally trained third party verifier,” Barron continues. “This means that it is not just the builder saying the home is green built, but that it is an approved, independent party certifying that the home meets the classification of Green Building as defined by the NGBS requirements.”

The Triangle has long been recognized as a leader in building innovative, high-performance, green homes. According to the Home Innovation Research Labs’ National Green Building Standard Certification Program, nearly 22% of all projects in the country are NGBS Green certified in North Carolina.

The HBAs of the Triangle look forward to hosting the 9^th annual Green Home Tour to show local homebuyers the array of green certified home options available to them.

A Kick Off Reception for the Green Home Tour will be held on Thursday, May 1, 4:30 – 6:30 pm at BuildSense, 502 Riggsbee Avenue in Durham. On Friday, May 2, 4:00 – 7:00 pm, a Raleigh Kick Off Reception will be held at Marbles Kid Museum Central Courtyard, 201 E. Hargett Street. Food and drink will be supplied by Whole Foods Market, Raleigh, at the Raleigh Reception, which will be held in conjunction with Raleigh’s monthly First Friday event.

Green Home Tour guidebooks are available at all area Harris Teeter stores, HBA offices, area Realtor^® Association offices, and the Whole Foods Market on Wade Avenue in Raleigh. For more information about the Tour, go to www.trianglegreenhometour.com or call (919) 493-8899.