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Builder is keen on benefits of association
Builder is keen on benefits of association
Membership has its privileges
By Bill Walsh
Times-Democrat Staff Writer
Golden Rule Builders, Inc., is currently at work on a large custom home near Nokesville that will have a geothermal heating and cooling system, so far be it from founder and president Joel Barkman to disparage this most emblematic of green-building technologies.
The Catlett-based custom builder agrees that geothermal HVAC is fine, that energy-efficient appliances are just dandy, that florescent light bulbs ought to be in every socket. They are all well and good as long as you aren't using them to just paper over the cracks.
Green is really much less glamorous, Barkman said, and points to the Energy Star list of criteria to make his point.
Energy Star is a voluntary Environmental Protection Agency created in 1992 to reduce residential greenhouse gas emissions through better energy efficiency. Certified Energy Star homes have tight construction and ducts, effective insulation and efficient heating and cooling equipment at the top of the list.
The sexier attributes — windows, appliances, lighting fixtures — are much farther down, Barkman said.
"Some of it is you want that 'badge,' so while it might cost you a lot more to do a geothermal system or a solar system, it is that green badge, that Covette, that BMW in the driveway," said Golden Rule designer Anthony Palladino. "But what's more practical, what I feel the most passionate about, is the stuff that you might not see from the outside. The inside of our houses say a lot," Palladino said, and he's not talking about the upholstery and wall treatments. "You take that drywall off, and that's...who Golden Rule Builders is."
Green construction, for the most part, "is not going to blow the budget, and in some cases it costs less, but there is more attention to detail," Palladino added.
Golden Rule uses Cocoon GreenFiber, for example, a cellulose-based, blown-in insulation.
In a Golden Rule home, it's blown into 2X6 walls, "for extra insulation, and this insulation gives us a sound barrier, too," Barkman said.
"While it still might be an R-19 value, it actually performs like an R-30. It costs a little more, but we make it a standard for our homes. It gives you a lot more than R value. It helps your house in a lot of different ways."
Well-advertised green products are glamorous and glitzy, but green construction "is more about how you...build a corner," Palladino said.
"The space above your window," he said by way of illustration. "You need a header for support. Traditionally, that header is a solid piece of wood. The insulating value of a solid piece of wood is about R-1.
"We frame it with a single header...so we have enough room for insulation there, too. Things like that...there's no slogan for it, there is no marketing campaign for it, it's not pretty."
Its beauty, he said, is in how it translates into your utility bills each month.
Despite green's current cache, only about one in five clients who approach Golden Rule about building a home come in with green at or near the top of their wish lists.
"If we could get more people to ask these questions, it would make my job easier, our homes better, our community healthier," Barkman said. "That's the goal."
And it's a ways off. Homeowners don't routinely see the construction details, and, without being educated, wouldn't appreciate them if the did. And when it all comes down to dollars and cents, they too often "get the normal house, with normal leaks and the normal bills," Barkman said.
In interviews, Barkman spends as much time touting the benefits of membership in the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association, for which he currently serves as Fauquier chapter president, as he does promoting his own firm — though the two are intricately linked.
And he spends a fair amount of time lamenting the fact that more local builders either aren't members, or don't take their membership seriously.
The NVBIA, the Home Builders Association of Virginia, and other, national builders' groups are educational goldmines, Barkman said. "How do we make our company better? Education. Very few companies do that," he said.
Education about new products, for example — many of which are launched with fanfare and advertising blitzes that dazzle consumers.
"So many new products get pulled back, revised," Barkman said. "We steer away from them until they have been sufficiently tried, tested. If I don't go to the builders' show, to the association meetings, I would never find out about the problems some new products are having. I would be at the whim of the homeowner, and that's what we are seeing in the industry," he said. "Most builders are just giving homeowners what they think they want because, [the builders] are not educated."
When it comes to housing, consumers have been convinced that size matters. Houses that were mansions 30 years ago are routinely dwarfed by today's run-of-the-mill development homes.
That likely will change, Barkman said, and rightfully so.
"I think we builders need to encourage the trend to downsize, to make homes more efficient," Barkman said. "If you have money to spend, put it in amenities. That's what we are advising clients: Don't put that big building up, then skimp on materials."
Doing that, he said, is "going to cost you and arm and a leg.
"We have to think differently," Barkman mused. "We have to think of where we're spending our money. We have to think about what's the wise thing to do."
That's a paradigm shift that, at least potentially, has far-reaching ramifications.
"How much is Dominion Power going to spend on its line?" he wondered. "Let's think backwards and say we're not going to [build it]. Let's say they have...$10 million to spend on [building] it. If they would go to their clientele and say, look, if you do this, we'll match you [with funding]. If you do this....we won't need this line.
"I am convinced that we could get where we need to be pretty quickly. Not only do we have problems with the look of [the power line], but we have problems with the economics of it. If Dominion would give all their clients credits to upgrade their homes, they wouldn't need so much electricity. And then we'd all be in a lot better position. I just wish we could do that sort of thing."
Golden Rule Builders, Inc., is located at 3409 Catlett Road in Catlett, and can be reached at (540) 788-3539. The Web site is www.goldenrulebuilders.com.
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