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November 2003
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Built Green® Colorado has perhaps the largest participation of builders of any green builder program in the country.
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Since 1995, Built Green® has sought to offer builders an accessible, flexible tool through which they can build and market homes that benefit homeowners and the larger environment alike. That tool is the Built Green® checklist, and more than 18,000 homes around the state have been built to its standards, making Built Green® the nation's largest and most successful green building program.
In recent years, a select few of the program's more than 100 builders have made significant strides not just in green building, but in the growing "whole-house systems approach" to building homes, and Built Green® has endeavored to remain a valuable partner in the work of continually improving the quality and marketability of high-performance, sustainable homes. To recognize the industry-leading work of these builders, and to maintain its position at the forefront of preferred building practices nationally, Built Green® will introduce a "tiered" system of certification based on the best systems-oriented building science available.
Starting in 2004, Built Green® will launch a three-tiered system in which the original level of compliance will remain as a baseline, with two additional levels that will recognize increasingly inclusive compliance with "systems" methods, including standards for ventilation, building tightness, mechanical sizing and efficiency, combustion safety, and water management.
To address the considerable technical expertise required to design and build such homes, Built Green® will continue to partner with national organizations like Building Science Corporation and Building America. These programs and others have amassed hundreds of case studies from around the country that answer questions about meeting similar standards, and about making all of the components of a home interact in a way that dramatically increases energy efficiency, durability, health and safety, and comfort.
Built Green® will conduct training sessions this fall that will familiarize builders with house-as-a-system building methods and introduce them to the requirements of the two upper tiers. The first in a series of training sessions was conducted at the "Green Advantage" High Performance Building and Development Conference on November 6 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Conducted by Peter Yost of Building Science Corporation, a Building America partner, the session was a preview of how the new Built Green® "tiers" align with high-performance and system-based building science criteria and other similar programs. A series of training modules focused on these new levels will be introduced in the first quarter of 2004. Homeowners around the state will soon be hearing a lot more about Built Green's® new structure, since 2004 will also see the launching of a high-profile media campaign to effectively promote the benefits of a systems-built, upper-tier Built Green® home. For more information, see the Built Green® Web site.
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