It was the kind of January day when energy use runs high: gray and stubbornly chilly. In a stuffy second-floor classroom in the Albemarle County Office Building, a window was propped open with a coffee cup, leaking heat and lending a certain irony to the occasion: an EarthCraft House (www.earthcrafthouse.com) training session, in which about 40 local homebuilders and inspectors packed the joint to learn about energy-efficient, eco-friendly house construction.
 At the green-roofed Albemarle County Office Building, local builders learned a few lessons on "green" construction from EarthCraft. |
Demand was high. “There’s already a list of folks we weren’t able to accommodate” in this session, says County planner Sean Dougherty, who helped organize the event.
Despite what he called the home construction industry’s technological backwardness, Chuk Bowles, a jovial, white-haired presenter, predicted that “by 2015, you’re going to see whole subdivisions with PV [photovoltaic] arrays.” To move builders into that brave new world, the Atlanta-based EarthCraft program offers a set of guidelines and a point system, through which individual houses can be certified. This seminar—covering everything from humidity levels in nonvented crawlspaces to indoor air quality—was part of the program’s current expansion into Virginia. EarthCraft says its houses represent big savings for buyers over the long term, as energy efficiency offsets a slightly higher initial cost.
Dougherty says it makes equally good economic sense that builders and architects are lining up to enter the EarthCraft pipeline, as consumers clamor for all things green. “If people understand they can buy the Prius model of a house, they’re looking for it,” he says. Builder Randy Rinehart, who attended the session, says he did so both for knowledge and a new marketing peg. “It is the up and coming trend that the consumers will be asking for,” he says. “I want to be on the cutting edge.”
Said Bowles to the gathered builders, “It’s a tremendous opportunity for you. It’s an exciting time to be in the building business.” This was followed by an awkward silence, then cheers.
