Rochester Business Journal

Homeowners' interest in green houses is uneven across the Rochester area despite high energy costs and greater access to environmentally friendly technology and building materials.
 
Some local homebuilders say clients rarely choose measures that go beyond improved insulation and high-efficiency heating and cooling, while other builders have found increasing acceptance of the approach.
 
"We had a little bit of a push for the energy homes for a while ..., but there was a lot of restrictions as to what kind of appliances you could use, specific types of light bulbs," says Nicholas Haralambides, vice president of construction at Aristo Development Inc. in Fairport.
 
Clients' desires for large gas-powered kitchen ranges, halogen lighting and other less efficient options have thrown the international energy standard "out the door a little bit," he says.
 
Aristo's clients almost never use the word "green" when explaining what they desire in a new home, says Haralambides, who has earned the designation of Certified Green Professional from the National Association of Home Builders. But they do ask about cost savings down the road, better efficiency, better performance.
 
Adds Haralambides: "They do want (to be green), but they only want to take it so far."
 
Multiple green features can easily add 3 percent to 4 percent to a home's cost, says Haralambides, whose company is No. 9 on the Rochester Business Journal's most recent list of homebuilders, ranked by number of units built in 2011. Energy efficiency alone is attainable for far less, he says.
 
Clients at Crosstown Custom Homes of Rochester Inc. generally show only a passing interest in having green residences.
 
"We have got some displays up and product literature, and we do offer some of the latest stuff," says Rudy Neufeld, secretary and treasurer at the Penfield-based firm. "But ... as soon as it costs something, they tend to (veer) back to the standard products."
 
Crosstown clients are willing to pay a couple of thousand dollars more for on-demand water heaters, which offer improved efficiency by turning on only when a hot water valve is opened, instead of storing hot water in tanks. The payback period on those devices ranges from three to five years, Neufeld says.
 
Still, the firm has not encountered anyone asking about solar- or wind-energy technology.
 
"In fairness to solar panels, we don't really promote them well because of the expense, and we just don't get a request for them," says Neufeld, whose company ranks sixth on the RBJ list of homebuilders.
 
Despite varying interest in green homebuilding here, the approach has gained a foothold nationwide, though the Northeast lags behind other regions' acceptance of it.
 
According to market analyst McGraw-Hill Construction, green homebuilding grew from 8 percent in 2008 to 17 percent last year, even with the economic downturn. Projections are that it will have 29 percent to 38 percent of the single-family housing market by 2016.
 
Based on a 2011 survey of 416 homebuilders, developers and remodelers for McGraw-Hill's Smart Market report, 33 percent of all respondents plan to commit to green practices within the next four years. Forty-six percent of homebuilder respondents with annual revenue of $1 million or more said green homes are easier to market than traditional ones.
 
Sixty-one percent of homebuilders and remodelers said homeowners were willing to fork over more money for green housing, the report shows. Perceptions of quality and concerns about rising energy costs prompted them to pay 6 percent more, on average.
 
Prior McGraw-Hill reports revealed that builders breaking ground on 25 homes or more annually were far more unwilling to build green than their smaller competitors. The current report shows that gap has nearly vanished.
 
Still, the Northeast is not particularly fertile ground for green homebuilding. Only 40 percent of firms in the region will likely engage in it by 2016, according to the report.
 
Yet some local homebuilders are banking on green.
 
Gerber Homes & Additions in Ontario, Wayne County, is building 23 green homes locally this year in conjunction with the National Home Builders Association's certification program. Until this year, all of the homes built by Gerber in the last decade have been Energy Star-certified, but a new duct-test standard prompted the firm to reconsider whether it will continue paying for that certification.
 
"But we are building to all of their (other) standards," says John Graziose, vice president of Gerber.
 
The new green homes are scattered throughout various suburbs, including Briarwood Estates in Webster, Magnolia Manor in Perinton, Old Brookside in Canandaigua, and Summer Lake and Centennial Village in Ontario.
 
Interest in green homebuilding is rising here, though it is not widespread and rampant, says Graziose, whose company ranks fifth on the RBJ's list of homebuilders.
 
The majority of clients "are asking about what we do with the homes to-for sure-make them more energy-efficient," he adds.
 
Some Gerber clients are committed to lowering their carbon footprint and buying locally made products, Graziose says. In recent years, homebuyers have begun asking questions about indoor air quality and paint off-gassing, he adds.
 
Still, he has not encountered any clients who want to go off the power grid.
 
"Most everybody today is kind of looking at it from more of a payback perspective," he says.
 
Adds Graziose: "We have some clients that are really interested in some reclaimed wood ..., partly because of the character, partly because of the fact they know it was (used) somewhere else, but no one who just has said, 'Let's go to the ultimate level,' of a green roof and things like that."
 
At Crosstown's Abbington Place patio-home subdivision in Penfield, some interest in green technology and features has surfaced among baby boomer purchasers. That demographic has the time to research green homes' advantages, and boomers typically are able spend more on the approach than young families can, Neufeld says.
 
Haralambides wishes there was more interest in green homes here, but he understands clients' concerns over resale value.
 
"When you look at the budget of the home, granite will win out over a solar panel any day of the week," he says.
 
Sheila Livadas is a Rochester-area freelance writer.9/14/12 (c) 2012 Rochester Business Journal. To obtain permission to reprint this article, call 585-546-8303 or email service@rbj.net.