Comments on: Builders fight Wash. energy code changes

By: Jack Smith

Jack Smith — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:28:43 +0000

Who should we (the public) listen to? A policy analyst, the Energy Chair (politician) or local builders who are running businesses, creating jobs, feeding families, and providing homes? Last time I checked, many local builders are interested in energy efficiency without politicians being involved. These people who push for dramatic changes have no idea of the economics involved, nor do they seem to care that a house that cost $20,000 more to build makes it unaffordable for most of the people interested in buying it. Do you know the economic impact the home building industry has on a community? If you don’t, you might want to check it out. Politicians and analysts who have never run a business, should not be pushing agendas without first, taking a true look at what the overall consequences are. There are a lot of builders that are doing the right things, not because someone is telling them to, but because they believe in doing the right things, for the environment, community, and people in general.

“If builders were doing the right things to begin with”……whose to say what the “right” things are? If a government official says it’s the right thing to do, does that make it “right”? Usually it’s quite the opposite. These changes will cost a homeowner more money than they save. They will make it harder for anyone to afford a new home. So in the end, we can all just move into older, less efficient homes from the past, thus erasing perceived gains these new code changes would have.

By: John Fazzolari

John Fazzolari — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:19:07 +0000

I agree with you Patrick, and I am all for building more energy efficient homes. I know we both work with our clients to educate them on the options available to them…but let’s not forget that it is their option. There are some people that would be pushed out of the market due to a 5,000 of 10,000 rise in home cost…and unfortunately what is really missing is a financial institution that will look at the cost to own and operate a particular home and factor that into their financing rules. Unfortunately they for the most part consider all homes the same to operate – when we know that is not the truth.

By: Patrick Sughrue

Patrick Sughrue — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:26:08 +0000

I’m always amazed at the Home Builders Association.
You would think They would be an educated forward thinking organization. Instead they fight change and especially any change to the energy code that would save the home owners thousands of dollars over the life of the building.
Our buildings could be built to use half of the energy they use now for a few thousand dollars more.

By: CS

CS — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:23:42 +0000

The building industry was fighting requirements to make homes more energy efficient when we were in the bubble, too, when they were making money hand over fist. The bottom line seems to be that the technology to do so is available and getting cheaper to do, but most builders aren’t willing to learn and implement it. The industry even creates its own ‘green’ standards that are far below what they could be, then self appoints itself as ‘green’ when it really is not.

The industry lobbies to reduce requirements and reduce accountability to the tune of millions of dollars annually. This is money spent on our elected officials, who then represent special interests like the building industry instead of American citizens. We as a country could significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and reduce pollution here, by improving energy efficiency of buildings and cars, but it’s not proceeding because various industries do not want to do it voluntarily, and can continue to afford–at our expense–to keep the govt from forcing them to. Operating responsibly would negate the need to be ‘forced.’ These are changes that are needed for all our benefit.

People have been building their own economical energy efficient homes for decades, some even totally off the grid. I was reading about these houses back in the 1960s. some of the technology is centuries old and low tech, it’s not all high tech expensive new stuff. There is no reason new homes cannot be at least as good as what ordinary people, and a small number of truly good custom builders, are doing. Much of the cost of new homes is oversizing and frills that don’t do anything. Builders and buyers alike need to rethink what is important, and builders need to focus on quality and energy efficiency. Quality itself is ‘green’ because it requires less repair and replacement that shoddy new construction typical now.

If builders were doing things right, there’d be no need to push for laws to make them do it right. As usual, another industry wants to slack off then lobby to get out of being resposible.