SAN JOSE, CA - For a housing market wracked with uncertainty, green is good. That was on display Monday when Pinn Brothers Fine Homes unveiled the first single-family subdivision in San Jose to meet a new standard for green homes. Most of what makes them green is hard to see - features such as water-saving shower heads and thicker insulation in the attic and walls. But the integrated solar roofs, standard on all 51 homes at Orchard Heights in San Jose's Evergreen area and on 19 homes at Falcon Place in Willow Glen, are an obvious signal that something green is afoot.
Last weekend, the first nine of the new homes at Orchard Heights (3,600-square-foot or larger homes starting at around $1 million) went on sale, and seven were sold. And this in a fragile housing market where sales of new homes fell to a 13-year low nationwide in January and sales in Santa Clara and San Benito counties dropped 45 percent last year. "We think when a buyer has a choice between a home that isn't energy-efficient and doesn't have solar power and one that does, the choice will be very easy," said Greg Pinn, vice president of his family-owned, San Jose-based home-building company.
The solar systems cost an estimated $20,000 to $25,000 for each home, but Pinn said that cost won't be passed along to consumers. Instead, by using it on all the homes, pushing for savings elsewhere in the construction process and with incentives coming from the state and PG&E, Pinn can price the homes at the same point as non-green certified homes. He readily admits that the homes' location in San Jose's Evergreen area, and the relative scarcity of new homes going up there, makes Orchard Heights attractive to potential buyers. "Someone's not going to buy a home out of their price range, in a location they don't like, in a floor plan they don't like, just because it's energy-efficient," he said. But "if there was another builder right next door with the same product that wasn't energy-efficient, I would bet money that ours would go (more quickly)."
Stacey Nguyen, who just bought one of the homes, said the potential for lower electricity bills and greater environmental friendliness was one factor in her decision. The new homes meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standard for new homes. LEED sets a national standard for green commercial buildings; the Adobe towers in downtown San Jose are a well-known local example. LEED standards for homes were just issued in December by the U.S. Green Building Council. So far, council spokeswoman Ashley Katz said, 502 residential projects in the United States have received LEED certification and 11,400 are in process.
In San Jose, First Community Housing's 35-unit Gish Apartments earned the LEED for Homes certification. The group serves transit-oriented families as well as those with developmental disabilities. "Green homes perform better than the average home," Katz said. "They're a healthier place to live with a smaller environmental footprint. It's like a tighter envelope."
San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, who offered up a green vision for the city last fall, attended Monday's ceremony. Afterward, he said his staff has started counting solar roofs in San Jose, and that fewer than 500 are now in place. His goal is 100,000 solar roofs in San Jose over the next 10 years. "I think it's going to grow rapidly with new development," Reed said.
The solar roof system, manufactured by BP Solar of Maryland and installed by OCR Solar & Roofing of Vacaville, is composed of 38 solar modules with an inverter, which converts DC current to AC, in each garage. The modules are part of the roof, as opposed to raised panels attached to the roof in most solar roofs previously. The system is capable of generating 2.5 kilowatts of electric
Source: MercuryNews.com