The High Performance Home
Pepper Viner Seeks to Systematize Green Building
By Jack Armstrong
In late 2008, BASF--The Chemical Company and Tuscon's Pepper Viner Homes embarked on an initiative to create a controlled process for transitioning into green production homebuilding. The effort resulted in the Pepper Viner High Performance Home--a test home that was to serve as a learning center for high-performance, energy smart construction for builders nationwide.
The resulting test home is 80 percent more energy efficient than a typical newly constructed home. On the Department of Energy's EnergySmart Home Scale, the test home comes in at 19--remarkably close to a net-zero energy home.
Open for tours starting in late September 2009, this was not Pepper Viner's first foray into green, high performance construction. In fact, when Pepper Viner broke ground at its Civano North Ridge development in 2007, the company made a commitment to set a new standard for green production building.
All of the 77 homes in Civano North Ridge will meet or exceed the high standards set by the DOE's EPact 2005 offering energy savings of at least 50 percent on heating and cooling when compared with a typical new home. The homes will also exceed the DOE's Builder Challenge requirements and every home is Energy Star rated.
High-Tech Partnership
BASF, the world's largest chemical company, was intrigued by what Pepper Viner Homes had accomplished and suggested the companies work together to test and systemize new high performance technologies to create a better and repeatable green building business model.
"Going green is an educational process," says Richard Barna, Pepper Viner's director of green building. "You are using different materials and different building methods. Trades have to learn to do their jobs differently. Quality control has to be in place at every step of the build." He adds that checklists were created to keep the team on track.
Barna explains that some of the new processes employed in the test home include installing a vapor barrier before the concrete was poured and working with environmentally preferable green concrete made from 40 percent recycled fly ash. The slab was then given a permanent colored finish and was scored and grouted, resulting in a carefree floor that never needs to be sealed or waxed. Moreover, the concrete provides important thermal mass to keep indoor temperatures constant.
The team also tested out a number of alternative high-performance building envelope technologies including structural insulated panels, or SIPS, for the walls; open-cell spray foam insulation for the attic underdeck; and a highly reflective, closed-cell insulation roofing system. The result is that every wall, corner and soffit is completely insulated. There are no cracks, crevices or joints that allow uncontrolled outdoor air in, providing a cleaner, quieter environment and maximum energy savings.
Learning Opportunity
So, what was the ultimate take-away for Pepper Viner? "Not every feature we experimented with will become standard in our production homes," says CEO Bill Viner. "This is our opportunity to find out exactly what works in terms of giving our homebuyers the biggest energy savings while keeping our prices competitive to similarly sized homes."
Viner adds that his company has already incorporated new practices into their everyday processes. "In fact, some of the features like open-cell foam insulation are being included in an affordable, low income housing project we are building for three nonprofits," he says. "Another project for a retirement community includes the open-cell foam insulation, SIPs and the recycled fly ash concrete."
Barna adds, "It's simple: energy efficient homes have to be better built homes. They have to be tighter, more solid and carefully planned down to the last detail. We learned to build a better home at a very competitive price. We're doing what's right for our homebuyers, our community and the beautiful Sonoran Desert that is our home."
"This is a change in the culture of our company, in the way we do business and the way we build homes," Viner concludes. "It is a lasting commitment to bring production home building as close to the net-zero energy home goal as possible while making sure that we build a better and affordable home."
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Jack Armstrong leads the cross-divisional sustainable construction initiative for BASF--The Chemical Company in the NAFTA region. Armstrong, also a chemical engineer, is often a featured speaker at national sustainable development forums, speaking on near-zero energy homes and commercial buildings, energy retrofit solutions, carbon reduction strategies and sustainable infrastructure.
