1953 suburban home in Garland, Texas, has
become the nation’s first renovated home to be certified to the high
performance requirements of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready
Home program, thanks to a successful collaboration between the non-profit
community development corporation Green Extreme Homes (GEH) and for-profit
builder Carl Franklin Homes of Lewisville, Texas. The 60-year-old, 3-bedroom
rancher is expected to save its homeowner more than $1,000 a year in utility
bills compared to a home built to the current 2009 International Energy
Conservation Code. Carl Franklin Homes conducted the comprehensive retrofit.
Green Extreme Homes worked with vendors, businesses, and local organizations to
acquire the grants and volunteers to make the project possible.
The DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program is a home labeling
program that seeks to bring homes to such high levels of performance and low
levels of energy use that a small amount of solar panels on the roof could make
the home a true net zero energy home, one that produces as much energy as it
consumes in a year. The program is typically aimed at new homes, but DOE
Building America Chief Architect Sam Rashkin mentioned to a long-time builder
friend, Steve Brown, his desire to try the criteria on a retrofit home. Brown’s
company, Carl Franklin Homes, has been building and retrofitting affordable and
entry-level homes in the Dallas area since 1993, working for the past four year
with Green Extreme Homes CDC, a Texas-based 501c-3 non-profit focused on
efficient affordable housing.
GEH and Carl Franklin
Homes jumped at the challenge of renovating the foreclosed home, which was
donated to GEH by the Bank of America. Although the exterior did not change
much, except for a new paint job, new roofing, and trim, the inside was
completely redone, giving the home and its owner, a disabled American veteran,
a fresh start.
