SECOND TIME AROUND
ENERGY CONSCIOUSNESS, HEALTH, AND DURABILITY ARE JUST A FEW FACTORS DRIVING THE GREEN REMODELING MARKET.
BY DAN MCCUE
Regardless of their relative modesty or ambition, all remodels ulti- mately come down to reconciling vision with context. And when it comes to incorporating green elements into the project, there’s the added dimension of just what shade of green the client wants to be. “I think the number-one consideration is still energy savings and behind that is indoor air quality,” says Michael Strong, one of three builders whose projects are showcased in this article. While today this might sound like a statement of the obvi-
ous, Strong, president of Brothers Strong, a Houston, Texas–based residential remodeling firm, and GreenHaus Builders, a LEED for Homes home builder, says it illustrates a gradual evolution in homeowners’ attitudes. “Interestingly, on our early remodeling projects, going green
wasn’t something our clients had in mind when they first reached out to us,” he says. “It was something that we would lead them to, with the driving factor being a heightened sense of durability. “You’d go out to a remodeling appointment, knock on the door,
and as you were waiting you’d look up and see something that was rotten or falling apart and think, ‘You know, I guess in hindsight, that was a pretty stupid idea.’” Strong joked that his firm “fixes the mistakes of Houston’s best-
intentioned architects and home builders,” but was quick to good- naturedly turn down the volume on his bravado. “It’s not that we’re so brilliant,” he says. “It’s just that I think we
bring a heightened sensitivity to durability and low maintenance to our green construction ethic.” Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Strong described himself as a
“lifelong tree-hugger and recycler.” So when he founded Brothers Strong in 1990, it was natural
that he would look for every opportunity to be as environmentally friendly as possible. While Strong credited his upbringing with his strict adherence to the “reduce, reuse, and recycle” ethos, he says it also instilled in him a philosophy that “different is better.” “We’ve always been anxious to throw our hat over the wall and
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try something new,” he says. With the Callaway home remodel, Strong brought these philoso- phies to bear in a historic Houston neighborhood. For Chris Kornman, president of Southern Homes in Slidell, La.,
the challenge wasn’t just to incorporate green into 150-year-old homes in uptown New Orleans, but also to help the city heal in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “This section of the city wasn’t flooded during Katrina, so it’s a
high-demand market, but the reality is most of these houses are sort of past the point where you can renovate them,” he points out. “Almost all have horrible energy efficiency, and even the nice ones leak [air] like a sieve.” While in other markets such homes might simply be bulldozed,
home buyers in New Orleans put a premium on the fabled city’s old and “weathered” features. “It makes for an interesting challenge,” Kornman admits. “Typi-
cally, we’re asked to double the square footage of the home, while making it more energy efficient and also maintaining the look of a century-old structure.” Out in Steamboat Springs, Colo., Joe Gillaspie, of Joe Gillaspie
Construction, interior designer Annette Stelmack, and architect Joe Patrick Robbins took an even more radical approach to a remodel, ultimately stripping a mountain vacation home to its foundation, recycling the old materials, and creating what the team calls the community’s first project to follow the ASID and USGBC Regreen residential remodeling guidelines. “At the time, there wasn’t much green building going on in
Steamboat Springs, at least that I was involved in, and I think of it as kind of hybrid of old and new construction methods,” Gillaspie says.
“Now, just a year or two later, people are thinking more in terms of incorporating green in their projects—trying to use water-based products and investing in things like LEED-certified windows—but I don’t know that it’s a driving force in our market yet,” he says.
September 2010 GreenBuilder 25
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