I have quickly learned that the construction business is about making the right connections and choosing to work with the right people. We recently made the decision (after a great deal of number crunching) to go with SIPs for our construction method of our house. Because we made this decision so late in the game it has pushed our start date out another week and with the 4th of July moving closer it appears we will be breaking ground in mid-July. Things seem to be moving slow and yet days and weeks seem to be whipping by like minutes. Corey (my General Contractor) was reassuring me today that it may be frustrating and it may seem as though this process is taking forever but it’s better to take the time up front on a project so unique like ours and ensure that we get it right, rather than rush to start and regret things we missed once it’s completed. Just hours after this insightful conversation with my GC I sat down for lunch with Corey from Benedict and Associates Curt Stendel from Panelworks Plus (the SIPs installer) and Jimmie Sparks (how appropriate of a name) from the Neighborhood Energy Connection (a non-profit organization that offers energy consultation and services to homeowners, businesses and builders across the state of Minnesota), I saw first hand why Corey’s patient approach is the right path.

Our decision to uses SIPs over traditional stick framing was not only based on the energy performance that SIPs offered as a product but also on the resources and knowledge that Curt offered leading us to today’s meeting. Sitting at the table with three people very passionate about energy efficient building was exciting for me. Jimmie was offering suggestions and information about ways to get the most energy efficient and green friendly impact out of our project. This was also reassuring to me as many of these things were practices that Benedict and Associates already implements in the way they build.

Our plan moving forward is to utilize Jimmie and the NEC’s services to track and advise our project as we work to make our home an Energy Star qualified home. You may think this is easy but as Jimmie pointed out much of this is about thinking deeper into the choices you make and what their impact is beyond your project. Do Natural Gas products produce less or more Carbon than Electric ones? Is it better to invest in an extremely tight house envelope or a super high efficiency heating system? How do you properly size your heating and cooling system for your home and is an over-sized system just as bad as an undersized one? There are a thousand questions like this that every homeowner and builder should be asking themselves before they build. Not only is it green friendly for the earth it’s also green friendly for your pocket book too. By making smart decisions in the planning stage of a project you can save headaches and money for years down the road.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2007 at 12:05 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.