exceptional quality
exceptional energy savings

Nevada Court

 

We were privileged  to work on a special project in 2006 for Denton Affordable Housing Corporation. 

 OUR GOALS:

  •  Design & build a small subdivision of homes to be as Green and energy efficient as an “affordable” housing budget allowed.
  •  Disprove the notion that “Green” has to be expensive.

 Dan Fette led the design team and served as Construction Manager for the project.


We began by analyzing different building methods and products to compare costs to long term benefits in terms of:

 

 -Energy and Water Efficiency

-Waste Reduction

-Durability                                                 

-Indoor Air Quality


We arrived at an optimum combination that lives and looks like a conventional house, has a competitive price, and saves a lot of money.  Heating & Cooling costs for the homes in 2006 averaged about $50 / month.


 

Green Building involves a systems approach to home design & construction.  The goal is to optimize interrelated components in an assembly.  For example, if a home is built especially airtight, with few or no windows exposed to direct sun in summer, and with the AC ductwork inside air conditioned space, then a much smaller air conditioner is needed.

This is the approach we used on the Nevada Court project.

 

 When a house is built very airtight, attention to indoor air quality becomes especially important.  Potential indoor air pollutants include mold & dust mites, formaldehyde, and other volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), and carbon monoxide.  On the Nevada court houses we took careful precautions to control all of these.


Heat-stressed landscapes and dying trees were a sober reminder of the scanty rainfall we received in Texas in the summer of ’06.  Many, who refused to let mother nature take their yards, compensated with lots of watering and lots of money to pay for it.  In typical area households, watering our lawns accounts for 50% of average water use.   On the Nevada Court project we placed rainwater catchment systems capable of meeting all of the irrigation  needs of our drought-tolerant landscapes.  Similar attention to water conservation was shown through selection of the plumbing fixtures and appliances inside the houses.

 

Nevada Court was the first subdivision in the metroplex in which all the homes met the requirements of Green Built North Texas(GBNT), a green building program assembled by the Home Builders Association of Greater Dallas.   GBNT categories include site selection & management, water efficiency, energy efficiency, materials efficiency, and homeowner education.

 

 

The following are articles in the Denton Record Chronicle regarding the unveiling of Nevada Court:

 Easy Being Green
Denton Record Chronicle 8/11/06

Developers Go Green With New Subdivision
De
nton Record Chronicle 8/13/06

 

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