About the Project:
Project Location: 3310 Shoshone St in NW Denver

Owner / GC: Urban Green Development

Project Goal: A fundraising project to showcase and network sustainable building contractors and green suppliers.

Background: Being built in one of Denver’s “hot spot” building neighborhoods, NW Denver’s historic Highland area, “The Green Cube” will be the city’s first LEED Platinum single family home, the highest sustainable/built green rating possible. When complete the home is expected use just 40% of the energy of a code built home.
The home is scheduled to open in late fall off 2011 as a Green Built Show Home in conjunction with U.S. Built Green Council, and will be featured on the DIY Network throughout the process. The home will bring together area contractors, suppliers using sustainable and reusable products as well as serve as a fundraising project to support an annual scholarship fund enabling North High students to pursue careers in the Green Building Industry. When complete the Show Home will host tours, open houses, seminars and special events all raising money for North High career scholarships.

The Show Home will host 3,000-5,000 trade professionals and consumers during the month of July 2011 The project offers the opportunity to partner and network with the nearly 100 green trades, suppliers and services required to build the home from start to finish. Please contact Brett Robben at 303-433-6212 or email brettrobben@comcast.net

During the construction of this EarthCraft home, numerous vendors donated their time and resources to the project. Brock Built partnered with WSB-TV Channel 2, which documented the construction of the Green House during its “Going Green 2008″ campaign.

GreenBuiltBlog.com has showcased quite a few of the green features found in the Green House, from organic pesticides to cellulose insulation. You can find almost everything you need to know about the Green House on our website. Do your research, once you read more about the Green House, I am sure you will be inspired to take a tour of the unique house and place a bid so that you can call it home.

The Rainharvest Company installed a rain harvest system and water re-use system. These systems will enable the homeowner to reduce their potable water consumption by re-using their laundry and bath water to irrigate the gardens. Capturing rain water will provide supplemental water for irrigation but also enable the homeowner to wash their car or any other outdoor use which they would desire.

Howe Contracting installed the “cool roof” series of shingles, a very unique roofing product manufactured by GAF Materials Corp. The “cool roof” series is designed to reflect the heat generated by the sun as its rays are absorbed by the roof. The highly reflective and emissive materials in “cool roofs,” will keep the roof surface nearly 50 to 60 degrees cooler than conventional roofs in the summer sun.

Cantsink contributed to the Green House by installing Helical Piles to support to the rear deck and front steps. A helical pile is a galvanized steel pipe shaft assembly with bell connectors on extension shafts and a 3/8’ steel plate pitched like a screw at its tip. Helical piles stabilize the foundation, eliminating the need for time consuming sub walls or augured piles.

Remember to take notice to these unique features when you visit the house, and remember that bidding will commence in the near future.

The home is located at 1536 Craftsman Drive, Atlanta, GA 30318. Tours are free and donations to the Children’s Health Care of Atlanta are greatly accepted. Even if you are not in the market to bid on this spectacular green built home, it won’t hurt to take a look at the Green House, because that way you may just learn more about how to make your home more eco-friendly. If you would like more information about the Green house be sure to check out the prime-time TV special that will air on WSB-TV on September 17th.

Installed by Lennox & Spence Heating and Air Conditioning -

Air Conditioner: ENERGY STAR qualified that deliver superior performance in
all areas important to today’s consumers – comfort, control, energy efficiency,
quiet operation, environmental responsibility, and reliability. The energy-efficient cooling systems also use R410A refrigerant, which is environmentally friendly and chlorine-free.

Gas Furnace: The furnace is crafted with uncompromising design to deliver efficiency ratings of up to 92.1%, which can save the homeowners hundreds of dollars on energy bills each year compared to older furnaces.

Media Air Cleaners: Combat indoor air pollution by capturing even the smallest airborne contaminants, such as dust mites, dirt, pet dander, and mold spores, and keeping them from recirculating back into the home’s air. Unlike similar products, the Lennox Healthy Climate media air cleaner does not produce ozone, which is a known lung irritant.

Along the same lines as the HVAC system is the water heater, so I thought it would be good to describe the green water heating system in the Green House in the same blog post. Solar Energy Marketing, Inc. installed a solar water heating system. Manufactured by EnerWorks, Inc., a Dorchester, Ontario company, and utilizing the Solar Thermal Energy Plant technology, approximately 80% of the hot water demands of “The Green House” will be met using the energy of the sun. The EnerWorks residential solar water heating system is a clean, cost-effective solution that uses the sun’s energy to heat the home’s water.

Sounds like a pretty neat house, huh? Remember this house is available for your purchasing pleasure, and you won’t just be buying a beautiful new green built home in Atlanta, but also making a sizable donation to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

First off, it represents many donated hours of labor and donated products. There is no way we can say thank you enough to all of the vendors that have helped make this charitable dream a reality. This one project really illustrates how the Atlanta community comes together to support a great cause, and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is one of the BEST causes around.

That’s another thing the Green House represents is a sizable donation to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. In a couple months time, this environmentally-friendly house will be auctioned off to the highest bidder with all of the proceeds benefiting CHOA. Operating three hospitals with more than half a million patient visits annually, Children’s is recognized for excellence in cancer, cardiac, neonatal, orthopedic and transplant services, as well as many other pediatric specialties.

And, of course, the house is a perfect example of green building trends. The home was constructed with every green feature and option available, in an attempt to spread awareness for the green building trend and all of the available green products. With a location in an award-winning community by Brock Built, West Highlands, the Green House is a beautiful, earth-friendly home that represents the Atlanta homebuilding industry well.

The exterior windows are Silverline brand, distributed by Robert Bowden, Inc. Silverline is an ENERGY STAR partner. Their windows reduce solar heat gain and minimize heat loss which keeps homes warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. A full 100% of any scrap vinyl, glass, aluminum, or cardboard remaining from production is recycled and reused.

Masonite, also partnered with Robert Bowden, Inc., is the manufacturer of the entry doors. Masonite’s ENERGY STAR rated Bellville® Smooth Fiberglass and Masonite® HD High Definition Steel Entry doors were chosen as the exterior doors for “The Green House.” The doors are fitted with low-E glass for additional energy efficiency.

As for the air filtration system provided by Electrolux, they installed a Beam HEPA system. The BEAM HEPA Air Filtration System is the most efficient system that removes airborne allergens and other particulates from the home. The system is 99.97% efficient at removing airborne particulate 0.3 microns and larger. A micron is 1/300 the diameter of a human hair. The True HEPA media in BEAM Air Filtration Systems offers the equivalent of twice or two-and-a-half times the filtering capacity recommended by the nation’s leading green building programs.

Keep checking back for more blogs about “What makes the Green House Green?”

More than being EarthCraft certified and built to the standards of ENERGY Star, green practices have gone into all the details with the Green House. For example, the interior trim, constructed by TLC Mouldings, utilizes MDF moulding. This particular product is an environmentally friendly product because no trees were harvested specifically for its manufacture.  In addition, TLC uses materials that are made from sawmill by-products making this a green product as well. As an added bonus this item is made right here in the state of Georgia.

Robert Bowden, Inc. installed the siding on the Green House and used Nichiha Products. More specifically, NichiBoard fiber cement siding was used, which is made completely of post-consumer recycled content, like recycled pulp fiber, fly ash and recycled fiber cement products. Being made of more than 50% post-consumer recycled material, NichiBoard siding is the “Greenest” fiber cement siding on the market.

As always, be sure to check back as we will be posting more details about all of the green products used on the Green House, and will have some photos of the completed project before too long!