LEED for Homes Illinois

Early Bird Rate just $299 ends Nov 15!

The residential building and remodeling community in Illinois will have an opportunity to prepare for new energy efficiency standards at the Better Buildings: Better Business Conference®, Jan. 31 – Feb. 2, 2012 in Schaumburg, Ill. As part of the conference, AES will be offering a full-day pre-conference workshop HOMES 252: Understanding LEED for Homes for a special price of just $159!

The conference is being brought to Illinois in response to energy efficiency initiatives that will be affecting the building industry in 2012 and beyond. Under legislation passed in 2007, electric utilities in Illinois must reduce overall electric usage by 2 percent of demand by 2015. These are among the most ambitious energy efficiency standards in the nation.

Similarly, the state’s natural gas utilities are being challenged by law to meet new energy efficiency goals.

In support of these ambitious energy efficiency goals, Illinois utilities are introducing incentive programs that are designed to foster the use of energy efficient products and technologies in residential buildings. Several of the state’s major utilities are co-sponsoring the conference, including Ameren, ComEd, Nicor Gas and People’s Gas / North Shore Gas.

In addition, the State of Illinois will be adopting the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) in June 2012. This code is significantly more stringent than the 2009 IECC, requiring more building insulation, a tighter envelope, mandatory whole-house ventilation, tighter ducts, better windows and more efficient lighting.

“Energy efficiency is an emerging area of focus for the residential building community in Illinois,” said Marge Anderson, associate director of the Energy Center University. “There is a significant need for education on all aspects of high performance homes, including reduced energy use, occupant safety and comfort, money-saving measures and issues of sustainability. There are also significant business opportunities for those who get in early on the energy efficiency movement, because they will be ready to provide their customers with appropriate products, services and technologies.”

The Better Buildings: Better Business Conference will feature more than 70 sessions addressing challenges and solutions for the home building and remodeling industry. Attendees will include builders, remodelers, architects, contractors, consultants, multifamily housing owners and managers, HVAC contractors, weatherization specialists and others in the residential building community.

Session tracks will address various aspects of high performance homes, such as indoor air quality, insulation and air sealing, HVAC, weatherization and more. The conference will also incorporate workshop tracks on building science, architecture and design, and business development. A building clinic will offer live demonstrations and hands-on learning opportunities. The complete conference program is available at www.betterbuildingsil.org.

The Appraisal Institute, the nation’s largest professional association of real estate appraisers, has made it easier to identify attributes of green homes. Last week, they released a form intended to help analyze values of energy-efficient home features. It is the first of its kind intended for appraisers’ use, and can identify LEED homes.

The new form is intended to be used as an optional addendum to Fannie Mae Form 1004, the appraisal industry’s most widely used form for mortgage lending purposes. Used by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration, Form 1004 is completed by appraisers to uphold safe and sound lending. Currently, the contributory value of a home’s green features is rarely part of the equation.

“This addendum is another example of how the Appraisal Institute is at the forefront of real estate valuation,” said Appraisal Institute President Joseph C. Magdziarz, MAI, SRA. “It will help the industry standardize the way residential energy-efficient features are analyzed and reported.”

The Appraisal Institute’s addendum allows appraisers to identify and describe a home’s green features, from solar panels to energy-saving appliances. Form 1004 devotes limited attention to energy efficient features, so green data usually doesn’t appear in the appraisal report, or it is included in a lengthy narrative that often is ignored.

Magdziarz pointed out that the Appraisal Institute’s form also will make it easier for appraisers to determine whether recent home sales should be used as comparable sales. Sales that are truly comparable are key components in determining a property’s value.

While the addendum won’t guarantee that an appraiser will raise a property’s value by tens of thousands of dollars for energy-efficient upgrades, it should guarantee at a minimum that energy improvements will be taken into account based on value adjustments consistent with local market conditions. More importantly, appraisers using the new addendum should be better equipped to identify accurate, area-specific comparable sales.

One of the interesting aspects of the form is the emphasis given to describing how renewable energy systems such as solar photovoltaic. The form has an area where data collected by the appraiser could easily be used to calculate the net present value (NPV) of the energy savings from a solar energy system.

It’s worth noting that this is an optional addendum to a traditional 1004 appraisal form. Hopefully the lending community will embrace this and builders, architects, lenders, appraisers, and other real estate professionals all find value in encouraging the use of this form for green homes.

Download the Appraisal Institute’s two-page green addendum at http://www.appraisalinstitute.org/education/downloads/AI_82003_ReslGreenEnergyEffAddendum.pdf.

Learn more about the form and how it will be used at a webinar on Nov. 17.

Builders of energy-efficient homes are now eligible for a business tax credit up to $2,000. This is retroactive to Jan 1, 2010 when the previous tax credit expired. Since every LEED home receives a HERS rating, this gives builders a great incentive to build green. Learn about this and other incentives for LEED.

In a newly-released report, the Alliance for Environmental Sustainability (AES) analyzed data from LEED-certified homes in the Midwest found that the homes averaged 40% less energy use and utility costs annually when compared to conventional homes.

LEED for Homes Case Study Report

From January through June 2010, the Alliance for Environmental Sustainability (AES) collected Read more » »

It’s no surprise that there are a lot of incentives out there for folks that are doing any remodeling that help encourage green strategies – everything from tax credits, tax deductions, rebates, grants,  municipal incentives, and more!  The USGBC Illinois chapter has been working on pulling much of this information together into an educational seminar that will be held Tuesday, Oct 19 in Chicago’s north suburbs. If you are a builder, designer or remodeler looking to capitalize on green building and better serve your clients, this is the event for you.

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Initial results from an analysis of LEED Platinum homes certified by the Alliance shows projects located throughout the Midwest use half as much energy as the typical baseline home.

Performance of LEED Platinum homes vs Baseline homes

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In a real estate market such as this, any edge helps. What if your home sold for 9.1% percent more than the competition? Why might a home do this you ask – because it is a certified green home, such as a LEED home. Read more » »

Recently, many people have told me they thought a LEED for Homes certification was going to cost many thousands of dollars – even over $10,000.  This simply isn’t true, at least not when using the Alliance for Environmental Sustainability (AES) as the LEED for Homes Provider.  So let’s bust this myth. Read more » »

The Village of Northbrook has a great incentive program for green building. to promote Green building techniques in public and private sector construction projects, they are giving rebates for LEED-certified buildings.

Northbrook uses the LEED rating system to distinguish different levels of sustainability in construction projects. In turn, for building green, there is a rebate for Covered Permit Fees (permits issued by Northbrook’s Building & Development Department for new buildings, additions, demolitions, alterations and site work) based on the LEED rating of the project.

Bonus: if you’re one of the first LEED-certified buildings in a property class, the permit fee is completely waived!

So builders, what are you waiting for? Here is a link to Northbrook’s Green page, where Green Building Incentives are covered. Or click here to view the full green building incentive policy.

There are two types of green insurance policies for homeowners.