We like to announce that, to further enhance the Imery Group’s green certification services, Luis Imery, has now successfully passed the LEED for Home Green Rater examination and has joined SouthFace as it’s LEED Provider. This will expand our services to include:

1. LEED for Home Green Rater Certification ( Luis Imery, LEED Green Rater in training)

2. EarthCraft House, Multifamily & Renovation

3. EarthCents certification for single family, multifamily and renovation

4. HERS rating services for new and existing dwellings

5. Energy Star version 3 qualifications

6. Green Consultation

We look forward to continue to build on our business relationship, and exceed your expectations.

Tags: Green Rater

This is the dilemma that many builders or people wanting to build their next “green dream home” are facing. But, what is the different? Is it not the same? Well, is NOT.

To start with, I’d like to go on record that I prefer any of these two options as oppose to building a home just meeting the minimum energy code requirements. Both approaches are at least trying to deliver a home that is sensible to the environment, that will be respectful to the use of manufacture materials and natural resources, and that will ultimate produce a home that will perform better than your average new home.

The difference between the two approaches is that a Certified Green Home is third-party verified by a qualify individual during the construction process. While, and Eco-Friendly home depends on the knowledge of the builder about green building, and that will vary greatly depending on the training that it has.

Typically, a certified green home will at least undergo what is call a pre-drywall inspection whose purpose is to check for proper alignment of the home’s building envelope to assure an air tight and properly insulated home, and a final inspection that will include an infiltration test that consist of testing the air leakage of a home with a blower door and a duct blaster, now required in Georgia by the new Energy Code. This qualified individual or rater as it’s called by the industry, works as well as the “Green Consultant” for the builder. Before the home is build, the Rater will meet with the builder or property owner and gather a wide variety of information from the stake holders in order to reproduce the home’s energy model. This model will generate a HERS index, which is the measuring stick for how efficient a home is.

Energy Efficiency is just one part of sustainability, but is the core of any green building program. After the energy model is done, then a rater will focus, depending on the chosen green building program, on other areas such as water conservation (indoor/outdoor), indoor air quality, lighting efficiency and more.

The importance here is that by certifying a green home, you are working hand by hand with someone who has gone through  intensive and multiple training and have gain many credentials that make them an expert in their field. More importantly, they view a home as a system and understand the building science behind it, and the interaction between each component.

So, if you are undecided on what to do. I first encourage you to find a HERS rater that can put you in touch with a builder that at least has gone some “green training”, and get your green team up and running. As an alternative, you can work with organization such as the Imery Group, where we have undergone the intensive training of a HERS rater since we provide third party verification services for Energy Star and EarthCraft House but also have an award winning green construction division.

In a nutshell, a certified green home, is the only way you can know how sustainable your new home is, the rest is just a guessing game.

Tags: Athens Eco Friendly Homes, Athens Ga Energy Star, Athens GA green building, eco friendly homes, green building, Green Construction, green homes, HERS Index, HERS Rating, RESNET

When asking what green building programs focus on, the short answer but that is open to too much interpretation is sustainability. The other thing commonly heard is that it is a holistic approach to construction. It looks into the interaction of each component that makes a home, and ultimately come up with a well balanced system. Today, I will dig down a bit more and get more into specifics but still keeping it simple.

Although they are many green building programs, their intention and areas of focus are similar across the board. For this blog entry, I will use the LEED green building program categories, since they do a nice job on breaking them out. Again, very similar approach is taken for other programs such as EarthCraft House. So here we go, everything that we look for can be grouped into… CLICK HERE

Tags: Athens GA green building, eco friendly homes, energy efficiency, Green Construction, Homebuyer Education, Resource Efficient Building Materials, Water Conservation Indoor, Water Conservation Outdoor

The Imery Group & Chastain, Jenkins, & Leathers is thrilled to announce that REALTOR Veronica Imery is certified as the ONLY EarthCraft Real Estate Professional in Athens, GA, providing her with training and knowledge on quality construction and a home’s energy efficiency.

“EarthCraft certifications demonstrate a true commitment to high standards of quality and efficiency” said Tyler Jones, EarthCraft Program Manager.  “We applaud Veronica Imery’s dedication to innovative, sustainable building practices”

EarthCraft projects have met an extensive list of energy-efficient criteria and use resources stipulated to have minimal impact on the environment to provide a homebuyer with a high-quality home that is incredibly efficient. Using a Realtor certified in these practices provides a buyer with an exceptional level of expertise in purchasing a high-quality home. Additionally, sellers can be effectively guided how to make improvements in their own home’s efficiency to give them a cutting edge in today’s increasingly competitive market. With today’s current economic climate, energy savings can make a huge difference for someone when purchasing a home. Having an Earthcraft and GREEN designated Realtor like Veronica Imery will certainly provide buyers and sellers with cost-saving information.

This designation couple with the Imery Group’s expertise in green building definitely makes them the best choice when it comes on building your next eco-friendly home

Tags: Athens Ga Energy Star, eco friendly homes, green building, Green Construction, green homes, GREEN Realtor

Athens, GA—[8/16/2011] The Imery Group’s construction division today is announcing that it is committing to build and label its homes to meet the new and more rigorous ENERGY STAR requirements set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) for 2012.  The Imery Group has built and rated already new homes that have earned EPA’s ENERGY STAR to date, representing substantial savings on utility bills while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“We’re proud to be making a commitment to continue building ENERGY STAR qualified homes in 2012, said Luis Imery “By stepping up to the new requirements, we’re going to be offering customers state-of-the-art performance in our homes with a comprehensive package of features that deliver greater value, quality, and comfort than ever before.”

Homes built to the new, more rigorous requirements (referred to as “Version 3”) will be at least 15% more energy efficient than homes built to the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), and will include additional features to give them a performance edge of 20-30% compared to typical new homes and even more when measured against most re-sale homes on the market today.

ENERGY STAR qualified homes that earn the label in 2012 will be built with a comprehensive, building science-based approach that features:

• A detailed package of home envelope air sealing, properly installed insulation, and high-performance windows to deliver comfort, durability, and lower utility bills.
• A high-efficiency heating, cooling, and ventilation system designed and installed for optimal performance.
• A complete water and moisture management package to protect roofs, walls, and foundations.
• ENERGY STAR certified lighting and appliances that help reduce monthly utility bills.
• Third-party verification, with independent inspections and testing by a certified Home Energy Rater.

“EPA has raised the bar for what families can expect when they buy a new home that has earned the ENERGY STAR,” said Jonathan Passe, Acting Chief of EPA’s ENERGY STAR Residential Branch. “Builders who meet the new ENERGY STAR requirements are making a strong statement about their leadership and commitment to providing American homebuyers with truly energy-efficient homes that offer lower utility bills and greater benefits for the environment.”

About ENERGY STAR

 ENERGY STAR was introduced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through increased energy efficiency. Today, ENERGY STAR offers businesses and consumers energy-efficient solutions to save energy, save money, and help protect the environment for future generations. More than 20,000 organizations are ENERGY STAR partners, committed to improving energy efficiency in homes, products, and businesses.

About Imery Group

We are a full-service construction, home energy performance, green building program certification and real estate group specializing in infusing sustainability in every facet of the real estate cycle.  We belief, that for the sake of future generation, we need to be mindful of the impact that our actions have on a social, ecological and financial level.

Most recently, the Imery Group has received the 2011 Green Building Project of the Year from the National Association of Home Builders, and the 2010 Platinum EarthCraft House Project of the year.

For more information visit www.imerygroup.com

Tags: Athens Ga Energy Star, Athens GA green building, Green Construction, green homes

Imery Group and RESNET have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together in promoting improved home energy performance and home energy ratings of new homes.

The intent of the MOU is to raise consumers knowledge of new home energy performance by using RESNET’s HERS Index. This will clearly differentiate homes built by Lifestyle Homes and put competitive pressure on the new home industry in the Georgia market to follow suit. It is expected that this agreement will serve as a model to other local and regional builders that would have positive outcomes for consumers, RESNET and the new home industry.

The Georgia based Imery Group is a full-service construction, home performance, and real estate group specializing in infusing sustainability in every facet of the real estate cycle. The company received the 2011 NAHB “Green Building Project of the Year, Small Volume Single Family”. For more information visit their web site at http://www.imeryandcompany.com/ 

RESNET is interested in entering into similar agreements with other regional and local builders. Energy raters who have builder clients who would be interested in entering into an agreement with RESNET should contact Steve Baden at sbaden@resnet.us  

Tags: Athens Ga Energy Star, Athens GA green building, eco friendly homes, energy efficiency, Green Construction, green homes, HERS Index, HERS Rating, RESNET

After meeting the folk’s of ProudGreenHomes.com  in the NAHB 2011 Green Building Conference at the award ceremony for which the Imery Group was awarded the 2011 Green Project of the Year, I decided to contribute to their excelent website as an Approved Certified Expert (ACE). Feel free to use that resource for my postings or other information. You are welcome to continue to check in my own posting in my blog. If you like to check my first posting you can go to the ProudGreenHomes.com blog section.

Tags: Athens Ga Energy Star, Athens GA green building, green awards, green homes, Sustainable Construction

Wow… So, what now for 2012? I am stunned by the fact that in just 1 ½ years in operation the Imery Group’s construction division has received a National and Regional Green Building award. In my business plan I intended to hopefully achieve these goals in 3 and 5 years respectively. As I said in my previous blog entry, it is very rewarding for us to receive all this recognition and we hope to serve as inspiration for many others…

This particular award is from the Greater Atlanta Homebuilder’s Association and Southface Energy Institute of Atlanta for the “2010 EarthCraft House Platinum Project of the Year.” EarthCraft House, is one of the many green building programs in existing today. Building homes under these standards provide home owners with a more energy efficient, durable, comfortable, and environmentally sensible dwelling when compare to homes built to meet code.

Remember the Imery Group provides other services specifically tailored for homeowners and builders

Tags: Athens Ga Energy Star, Athens GA green building, Custom Home, Green Construction, Imery Group

To start with, I am honored to be the recipient of this green building award from the National Home Builders Association. It is very encouraging and rewarding for my company to be nationally recognized for something that we started working on 4 years ago. This is when the journey began…

It was July 2007, when a friend of mine and I started talking about this unavoidable green trend. Anywhere we looked, whether it was print media, television, internet or radio you would always see companies trying to be more environmentally friendly and responsible with the products and services they provided. However, we did not see, at least in our local level, a strong presence of this green minded approach for the homes and communities that we leave in. A quick web searched led us to discover that there was the Earthcraft House and Energy Star program. LEED seem to be on a pilot program for homes, and there was not much out there that looked at the homes as part of a larger system. In other words we were looking for a holistic approach to developing a neighborhood/community.

With my strong real estate and construction background, and my friend’s expertise in market research and product development experience, we decided to find out what the average people thought about sustainable living, which by itself is very abstract. So, for a period of six month we developed very detail and thorough survey documents that we later used to conducted street surveys at the doors of local farmer’s market, and mail surveys to owners of hybrid cars. The preliminary results were very encouraging and very quickly found out that there was a huge opportunity.

To validate our findings, we decided to conduct a focus group. For this event we invited 8 people from the surveyed sample, and prepared a presentation following a specific methodology for finding out what people really want. If I am not mistaken the name of the technique we used is called SIMALTA, and it basically forces people to make decisions based on limited resources. Isn’t it this how we make our everyday purchasing decisions? In other words, you make trade off. If you had unlimited resources you would want everything on a car for example. You would want the ABS break, roof top, leather seats, etc. However, if you have limit resources, you have to really think on what features you want, and how much you are willing to pay for them. This is precisely what we did but in our case we wanted to analyze the features or attributes of these “green” homes by itself, the community, and the interaction between them. For us it was very important to be able to gauge this interaction since one of our premises was to determine if people only cared about a home, or did they prefer a community/neighborhood of which the homes where just a component of a larger system. In other words, we were trying to find out if a holistic approach to building green communities made sense. The conclusions were astonishing…

So right when we were ready to start looking for the ideal property to develop following a holistic design approach, where we would build a one of a kind neighborhood, the bottom fell off in the housing industry. This led us to put our vision in the back burner, and wait for the economy to improve before committing on a project like this. During this time, both EarthCraft and LEED developed their community designed guidelines which served as an additional way to validate our conclusions, since many of the requirements or points to comply with these programs were the things that we discovered in our focus group.
During this period, I decided to get ready for when the market started showing signs of improvements, so I learned as much as possible about sustainable and energy efficiency construction. I accomplished this by becoming a certified HERS rater, a building analyst with the Building Performance Institute, an EarthCraft technical advisor, and a licensed general contractor.

It was July of 2010 when I saw the opportunity to acquire 4 lots in a fairly stable community in Athens, GA, and decided to test drive the “home components” of our focus group conclusions. This home that won the award and its twin, were designed and built to capture most of the features and attributes of our findings. I enjoyed every single minute of the planning and construction process of these two homes, and using them as much as I could as educational tools by making them available for seminars and open house events, while in construction, to the citizens, county agencies, and trade organizations. So, part 1 of my vision has been officially completed…

Now I am looking forward on an opportunity to fulfill the part 2 of my vision, and develop from the ground up a community that will provided all the sustainability components gathered in my market research and make them available in an affordable and simple way to the average person.

This way of construction it’s not just for the green minded people, it ought to be the standard in construction because it not only makes sense for the environment but also to our pockets. It has been proven that these homes save you money in perpetuity.

Tags: Athens GA green building, Green Construction, green homes

We are excited to announce that our real estate division has join efforts with Chastain Jenkins and Leather . We belief that this relationship will allow us to maximize companies’ resources, providing unique value to the Athens Area market place. To view full press release click HERE

Tags: Athens GA green building, GREEN Realtor

Veronica Imery, with Chastain Jenkins and Leathers creatively hosted an Open House while the homes where half way through construction right before insulation wasapplied. This unique event and open house, which was highly attended, gave our guest the opportunity to see, feel and touch everything that goes into building a High Performance home before it gets cover by drywall

Tags: Advance Framing, Air Sealing, Athens Ga Energy Star, Athens GA green building, energy efficiency, Foundation, Home for Sale, Homebuyer Education, Moisture Control, Resource Efficient Building Materials, Roof, Speculative Home, Waste Management

During the construction of the first two EarthCraft Homes to achieve Platinum level in Athens ,GA the local newspaper Athens Banner Herald  published an article about them and the local green building  trend, and other local green iniciatives. Check it out HERE

Tags: Athens GA green building, Resource Efficient Building Materials, Waste Management