Wendy Bounds reports:
Last Friday, the seventh annual GreenBuild Expo wrapped up in Boston. The stock market swooned that week but such woes seemed lost on the buoyant crowd of builders and vendors. Nearly 30,000 people picked giddily through photovoltaic panels, rainwater tanks and metal roofing while strict eco-order prevailed; waste stations boasted four containers (1 trash, 2 recycling, 1 compost) with young eco-volunteers on guard to ensure a half-eaten organic turkey sandwich landed in the proper receptacle. Meanwhile GreenBuild bamboo Tee-shirts and blankets fashioned from recycled plastic bags sold like shoes at a Prada sample sale.
If the exuberance seems a bit naive (home prices fell another 17% in the third quarter), it wasn’t totally misplaced. McGraw-Hill Construction released figures that week suggesting the U.S. green building market is accelerating dramatically – up five-fold to as much as $49 billion this year from $10 billion in 2005. While still a small fraction of the total U.S. building market, that figure could triple by 2013.
One of the more cautiously optimistic on hand was builder Clark Wilson from Austin, Texas. His 18-month old company Green Builders Inc. is targeting a sector often written off in green housing: the middle class. The company’s homes average $225,000 and range from 1,600 to 3,500 square feet. (The one pictured here: $246,990 and 2,747 square feet.) In green terms, the price tag gets you, among other things, bamboo flooring, on-demand water heaters, rain barrels, insulated windows, high efficiency heat pumps and a thick dose of Icynene spray foam insulation. There’s also stuff you can’t see, like non-toxic finishes without volatile organic compounds and formaldehyde-free kitchen cabinets. Homes adhere to Energy Star specs and National Association of Home Builders green building standards.
A three-decade building veteran, Mr. Wilson makes the numbers work by calculating how higher-cost eco tweaks can save him money elsewhere. Thick insulation requires a smaller air-conditioning unit. A well-sealed attic means the air handler can be positioned for shorter duct runs. A Craftsman look on some homes pushes windows up into the eves to reduce facing and runs of soffit.
His marketing pitch aims at the pocketbook: green saves you money on utilities (up to 50%), and p.s., it’s also good for your health and if you’re still listening, also good for the world at large.
Projected revenue is $13 million in five years; he’s looking at Houston, Dallas and San Antonio next and after that, he believes, “the world is our oyster.” But even his glass-half-full attitude can’t staunch market realities. Mr. Wilson sold 60 houses this year; that dropped off in August and in October he says, “It was lights out.” His stopgap solution: a green remodeling division, announced at GreenBuild. The first day, three people signed up online for energy audits to figure out where they need his help. That’s only $300 a pop, but Wilson spins it optimistically: “I’m getting paid to bid a job. That’s never happened before.” Green Builders is currently building in Driftwood at Rutherford West on FM 967.
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