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A gutted interior living room is show at this Extreme Green model home. Meritage Homes unveiled their new Extreme Green homes at the Providence master-planned community in Las Vegas with a ribbon cutting ceremony Friday, March 11, 2011.
Friday, March 11, 2011 | 9:34 p.m.
Beyond the Sun
Some people might balk at a model home with exposed insulation and toilets sawed in half.
But the folks at Meritage Homes, which unveiled an Extreme Green model home at a sales center at the Providence master-planned community Friday, see it differently.
They see the “deconstructed” model as a chance to teach consumers about renewable energy and the ways it will be incorporated into houses in the future.
Meritage Homes, one of the top 10 homebuilders in the U.S., plans to start building these Extreme Green homes in their Providence and Mountain’s Edge communities in the near future.
The model home is loaded with signs explaining each of the house’s energy-saving features: Solar water heaters. Spray foam insulation. Double vinyl, low-E windows. A 14 SEER air conditioning unit. Even dual flush actuator toilets.
The idea, Meritage Homes regional President Fred Hermann said to an audience that included Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, is to help people understand that living in an energy-efficient home can be easy.
“You will live better every day in this house,” Hermann said. “It doesn’t require people to change their entire lives.”
Nor does it require them to break their checkbooks. That’s the idea, anyway. The homes sell for between $151,900 and $229,900 and range from 2,000 to 2,500 square feet. On top of that, Meritage Homes estimated the homes’ energy-saving features should save owners up to 50 percent of their previous energy costs.
Alexia Vernon, who snipped the green ribbon with Goodman, and her husband were touted as the first Extreme Green homebuyers. They’ve lived in the valley for six years, Vernon said, and were impressed with the Extreme Green model because of its “integrated approach. These aren’t just a few flashy features.”
“We want to be a part of a community like this,” she said. “This one just topped all of the competition.”
Goodman said Meritage Homes’ goals fell in line with Las Vegas’ larger efforts to build a sustainable community. He gave the city’s plan to convert all of its vehicles to alternate energy as an example.
“We need to find ways to make our city more sustainable, instead of just talking about it,” he said. “This is an addition to what we’re trying to accomplish here.”
For the launch of its Extreme Green model, Meritage Homes has also teamed with NV Energy to offer a complete solar energy system, including solar panels on the roof and a solar water heating system, for its first homebuyers.
Consumers in that program could see energy savings of up to 80 percent, the company estimated, although it includes a $54 monthly payment to cover the system. Still, users should see more cash in their pockets over the long term, said Bob Stewart, senior vice president for customer relationships at NV Energy.
Stewart agreed with Hermann that one of the biggest obstacles facing companies with renewable energy programs is convincing customers energy efficiency is possible without upending their lives.
“The biggest challenge is getting information out about how people can improve their energy usage,” he said. “They’re really going to see how it works here. That’s what we’re striving for.”
The Extreme Green model home is located at 10549 Galleon Peak Lane, off Crescent Mountain Road in Providence. For more information, visit the Meritage Homes website.
An SEER of 14. Boring. They made more efficient AC systems in the 1970s. These should be units of an SEER of 18 to 21.
Double vinyl windows? What are these. Double pane insulated glass would be better. Or how about triple pane glass? There is even triple pane windows.
More illusion than reality.
The 1st pick looks like it would be a dark room during the day once the drywall is up and at night with only a few can lights.
On their website they show using screw in compact fluorescents. LED's is where the future is at. No mercury, longer life, and use less power then the CFL's.
How about a builder that shows the quality of construction built by skilled tradesmen not installers. Flex heating supply ducts made out of something like a garbage bag with only 1 return to make it easy to install. Or the non-metallic Romex electrical, that is the cousin of the extension cord.
Spray on foam insulation? Sorry, I prefer to wrap my home with something that does not burn easily like fiberglass.
What is more green?
Old school sheet metal ducts, electrical in steel conduit, fiberglass insulation.
Or this plastic crap of ducts, vinyl windows, foam insulation, plastic sheathed cables, and mercury bulbs.
So basically what we have here is the Wal*Mart version of going Green. A little tiny cheap house, on a little tiny cheap lot. Where's the Chevy Volt?
I agree with all 3 comments above.
Spray foam is fireproof,would work EXTREMELY well on exterior walls and roof lines.Batting while it is good will allow extreme heat to transfer in when the extreme heat like the extreme cold back East lingers for long periods.My East coast house though very well insulated under normal winter conditions was no match for the extreme cold over long periods of time. My walls became cold.Vinyl Windows unlike metal windows do not transmit heat inside. Having a low e rated double pane window works very well in both conditions.The quality of workmanship in producing windows would have to be a big deciding factor.You buy cheap,you get cheap.
I wish they would greatly improve a/c duct work and insulate it far better then they do now.Going green on an existing home,well you certainly can do a whole bunch of things to cut down on those high utility bills.I find most people here don't really care.I think the local government needs to make those calls with builders.They allowed builders to get away with murder over the decades.
Flex ducts will prove to be Edsel of construction. Fact - condensation occurs in there, dust accumulates, stuff grows there. There's no way to clean them. We'll get moldy sick houses from them and then throw them away.
LEDs are cooler, free of Mercury, longer life and WAY better light.Pus ya don't have to wait two minutes before they are bright enough to effin see.
And the big bitch I got is duct leakage. The BEST houses with ducts outside the envelope lose 3-5% of their flow. HUUUGE issue. But mastic would fix that, and do we mastic every joint? hell no.
And then the codes permit R-6 or 8 on ducts. Why not R 30?? The most expensive air in the place - right off the bat from the chiller or heater - and we dump the conditioned condition into the ambient with flimsy duct insulation.
And then there's Tiger Teeth, insulation supports that MOOSh the insulation.. Effin dumb. And then they fall out with any moisture content and the batts sag away, mice move in and, never mind.
And such a better plan is encapsulated floors - fill the cavity with R-30 or 38, cover the bottom w/ blue board, and seal the blue board. No critters, no wind-washing of insulation and TAA DAA .. a WARM floor in the winter and a cool thing in the Summer.
Code guys are bought out, corrupt and anti-American in my little book!
And a SEER 14 is a Trojan Horse, planted inside the walls. A much better installation would have been geo-thermal Heat Pump or at least a SEER 16 or 18; simple calculations show a SEER 14 to be a total loser over its life even at at constant KWH cost (that WON'T happen!).
The dual compressors share the load well and way out-perform this junk.
It looks like some builder took a half-ass idea and pared it down and bought an ad. It doesn't look like progress; more like McGyver goes Green and got help from Bube Goldberg.
Solar water heaters really ought to be code here, but NVE would fight their tails off and win likely since they can control whatever they want it seems.
And not putting solar air heaters on the South wall in unforgivable if you ask me which you didn't.
And not using a tracking collector array tosses away some 30% of juice. Short-sighted and done on the cheap. McGyver Goes Green with gratitude for Boob Goldberg.
And where's the garden? The composting toilet? The cool tubes? What year was the Popular Science idea stolen from, 1975??
Consumers should always challenge marketing claims and require full transparency. In the emerging science of 'Green' -- Government backed third party validation, and a cost benefit analysis are critical parts of ensuring a consumer realizes the benefits of new green building processes. Meritage Homes has partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and the Residential Energy Services Network to audit, test, and certify every home we build as part of the Energy Star for Homes program. The result is a third party test report, called a Home Energy Rating System (HERS) report, that validates the performance of the energy efficient features built into these homes. Meritage offers detailed information on their website, in their Meritage Green Section, and you can always ask their green guy (me) a question directly at Ask.Green@MeritageHomes.com