Austin Way Magazine - GreenGale Publishing - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/367813
photography by wayne jeansonne (round rock); courtesy of barley|pfeiffer architecture (pfeiffer home) "The idea of my house was To make iT use less energy by The naTure of iTs design… To geT people To Think more deeply—beyond jusT gizmos." —peter pfeiffer Peter Pfeiffer's home was included in the Cool House Tour. adopted its first energy code in 1985 in an effort to help builders meet or exceed their energy requirements through techni- cal support—and not just inspections. The city established a green-building ratings system for sin- gle-family homes in 1991, which served as a model for LEED ratings established by the USGBC. Eventually, Austin's ratings systems came to include multifamily and commercial properties. "We were always a step ahead," says Richard Morgan, green-building and sustainability manager for Austin Energy (austinenergy.com). "Ours was the first US sustainability rating program. Throughout the 1990s, programs in Atlanta, Scottsdale, and other cities used our program as a template to build their own programs. And when the LEED ratings system began, our staff was involved with that." A prime example of how popular green home building is in Austin is the 700-acre Mueller mixed- use site, set three miles from downtown and two miles from UT. The sustainable, master-planned community features single-family homes, town- homes, and condos built with nontoxic and recyclable materials. The developer's goal is to give residents a place to shop, eat, work, and play without having to get into their cars. Such urban infill projects with sustainable design will only become more popular in Austin, believes Philip Keil, princi- pal of Furman + Keil Architects (708 rio grande st., 512-479-4100; fkarchitects.net). "I'd like to think of this as not a trend but as simply good building practices," he says. Furman + Keil designed two homes on June's Austin's Cool House Tour, the 18th annual event led by Austin Energy Green Building and the Texas Solar Energy Society. The green-building movement is widespread across the city and beyond. "We've seen ranch properties that are implementing green practices such as rainwater collection," Keil says. "When you have a lot of land and are distant from the city, collecting rainwater makes a lot of sense." Wayne Jeansonne, founder of Austin-based Solluna Builders (1011 meredith dr., 512-804- 2050; sollunabuilders.com), has been in the green-building business for 12 years and has four projects under contract now, compared with two at this same time last year. The builder echoes Keil's sentiments about rainwater collection. "The city's drought has made people aware of the need to con- trol their own water destiny," he says. Jeansonne recently installed a 30,000-gallon water tank on a home with 4,000 square feet of air-conditioned space. "They filled up the tank in two and a half months," he says. "For every inch of rain on 1,000 square feet of roof, a homeowner is collecting 625 gallons of water." One of Jeansonne's projects was building a net- zero-energy home for a Round Rock couple who lived in a 2,100-square-foot home and sought to downsize and live more sustainably. "I wanted to do my bit to save the planet," says Karen Cripe. "My husband was more interested in the cost savings." When their homeowner's association wouldn't allow them to make certain changes to their house, they found a plot of land and built a 1,400-square-foot net- zero-energy home from the ground up for about $290,000. "We're heading into retirement and try- ing to keep our lives as low-maintenance as possible,'" she explains. Lucy Stolzenburg, executive director of the Texas Solar Energy Society (txses.org), points out that attendance in the Cool House Tour (in which Pfeiffer's home was also featured) was up 20 per- cent in 2014 compared with the previous year. Even more interesting was the mix of attendees. "The staff working on the tour says the crowd looked a bit younger this year," Stolzenburg notes. "That's a positive sign. We're not just marketing to the move- up market but also to the first-time home buyer. That's really important." For his part, Jeansonne thinks green building will continue to penetrate the Austin market. "I started out when this was a niche market and con- sidered exotic in Austin," he says. "But it's gone from extreme to mainstream." AW conTinued from page 143 Solluna Builders created a net-zero-energy home for Karen and Dan Cripe in Round Rock that was part of Austin's 2011 Cool House Tour. 144 AUSTINWAY.com haute property