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Creative energy
By JUDY STARK, Times Homes Editor
The model home he designed for Gold Crest Homes, in the Citrus County subdivision of Pine Ridge Estates, is loaded with energy-saving technology and environmentally sensitive building products. But at 3,158 square feet, with soaring ceilings, sliding glass doors that look out on a pool and waterfall, three bedrooms, 21/2 baths, a whirlpool tub that churns like the Colorado River while massaging the bather's neck, a huge pantry and a three-car garage, Cross hopes the house will appeal as well to buyers who want luxury and pampering while they're saving the planet. The house is among 32 entries in the Parade of Homes sponsored by the Citrus County Builders Association. The parade opens today and runs through March 3. (See the box on Page 3F for details. The Gold Crest house is at 4586 W Pine Ridge Blvd. in Pine Ridge Estates, off N Lecanto Highway (County Road 491) in Beverly Hills, Citrus County; phone (352) 527-1988.) "I like the idea that I'm contributing to the goodness of the planet, not taking it away," Cross said as he walked through the house recently. Many of the products and systems used in the house are for sale through his related company, Distribution Partners. Cross, 32, is president of that company and a technical consultant to Gold Crest Homes. Greg Conard, president of Gold Crest Homes, is vice president of Distribution Partners. Conard is also the new president of the Citrus builders' association. One of his goals in the house, Cross said, was to employ materials and techniques that construction workers are already familiar with, "not stuff that's so advanced it's undoable," he said. He also wanted to demonstrate to fellow builders that if buyers see these products and techniques, they'll want them, or at least some of them, and that will show up on a builder's bottom line. "A lot of this can be retrofitted, too," into existing homes, he said. Cross started his tour pointing to a sign on the front lawn proclaiming that the house is an "ACT Premium energy-saving Energy Star home." That means the house exceeds the minimum standards of Florida Power's Air Circulation Test program. It uses high-efficiency heat pumps and mastic-sealed ducts; there is additional insulation in wall cavities and ceilings, a radiant heat barrier and compact fluorescent lighting. "They used a lot of different technologies in that house to make it an energy-efficient showplace," said Guy Fish, ACT program director for Florida Power in Crystal River. "It's a very efficient home." "That's even without sealing the electric outlets, and with sliding glass doors," which are often leaky, Cross said. The gaps provided by the outlets and sliders actually work to the house's advantage, providing the necessary air exchange to avoid "sick building syndrome," which can occur when a house is sealed too tightly.
"I've been doing energy audits for almost 20 years now, and I've never seen that type of register in the ceiling," Florida Power's Fish said. The house has 12 air-conditioning zones (most large homes might have four or five, smaller homes two) and is cooled by a 31/2-ton system with a SEER (energy efficiency) rating of 14. Ordinarily, Cross said, a house of this size would require an 8-ton system. Most homes have air-conditioners with SEER ratings of 10 or 12; the higher the SEER number, the better. The home's windows are tinted, insulated, double-paned windows with aluminum frames. "No doubt there are higher performing windows out there, but the cost difference couldn't be justified when we'd already addressed energy efficiency in so many other ways," Cross said. In the master bath, he demonstrated the on-demand hot-water system that had steaming water pouring into the spa tub in 10 seconds. These tankless or instant water heaters work by heating the water instantly on four powerful elements as it passes through the heater when the faucet is turned on. When you close the faucet, the burners turn off. This is less expensive than keeping a 40- or 80-gallon tank of water hot at all times, and one utility estimates it can save as much as 10,000 gallons of water a year in a household of four (since you're not letting cool water run down the drain while you wait for hot water to arrive at the faucet). Fish, the Florida Power energy auditor, liked that system but said, "The bad part about that is that it's never-ending hot water. If you have a teenager, he'd never run out of water, and he'd stay in the shower forever!" In the big shower, water temperatures can be preset "so you don't need to adjust the shower, no matter if someone else flushes a toilet or is using water in the kitchen or for other uses," he said. That's both a safety feature and an energy-efficiency feature.
He showed off one of two boxes with individual labeled shutoffs for each faucet in the house (they look like an electrical circuit-breaker box). The house uses a hybrid polyethylene piping. That, he said, means "The chance of a leak is ridiculously low," because of the product's strength and because there are no welds or joints as there would be with copper piping. Outside, the pool deck is made of a composite product consisting of recycled milk jugs and encapsulated oak fibers that is reputed not to rot, split, crack or attract insects. The manufacturer, Weyerhaeuser, says this is the first pool deck using this product, called Choice Deck Plus. The edges of each plank were individually beveled, and water drains between the boards to the ground below. "We're trying to solve problems before they start," Cross said. A concrete pool deck will eventually crack, and pavers need to be reset every couple of years because they settle. The pool is finished with a coating that is similar to what is used on the inside of crude oil tankers. It is formulated to work well in highly oxidized environments such as chlorinated pool water. The pool water (like all the water in the house including the toilets) is treated with a whole-house ozone purification system that bubbles ozone into the pool. That allows homeowners to reduce chlorine usage by up to 80 percent. The combination of technical advances in the motor and pump and the ozone circulation and sanitary effects mean "It uses about a half the standard amount of power," Cross said, and he has equipment available that could reduce the power demand to one-quarter of the standard. In the three-car garage, Cross pulled down the stairs leading to the attic to show off the heat-rejection material with which the ceiling is lined. This is a foam core wrapped in a product similar to aluminum foil. "It reflects heat with up to 97 percent efficiency. It bounces the heat away," he explained, and is unaffected by moisture or dust, both of which cut the performance of similar products. The house has R-25.5 insulation in the walls and R-44.5 in the ceilings, compared with R-11 in the walls and R-19 used in the ceilings of most houses around here. Its energy-saving components aside, the house offers a Bruce engineered hardwood floor in the living and dining areas, a vent-free gas fireplace in the formal living room and decorative ceiling medallions around the chandeliers in several rooms. In the kitchen, the builder used 16-inch Durastone vinyl flooring by Congoleum that feels like ceramic tile. This is a new product, part of the vinyl flooring industry's effort to reposition itself to attract upscale buyers, and it will be interesting to see how the market responds. The house, Cross said, "will appeal to the upscale, moveup buyer who demands, literally, a performance-based house." It is priced at $357,000 including the homesite. Cross estimates that the technology with which it is loaded represents about $30,000 of that figure. But he points out, for example, that many of these items will soon pay for themselves: The tankless instant hot-water systems, for example, "will save you $200 a year apiece" in electrical costs. Fish, of Florida Power, estimated that such a system is 98 percent efficient, compared to a standalone water heater that is 88 to 90 percent efficient. It all comes down to a market-driven decision. Builders are reluctant to take on new products or techniques until they're sure they work, are backed by good warranties and won't require expensive repairs or callbacks. They want to make sure their subcontractors can install them easily and quickly, since time is money on a job site. And they want to make sure consumers want them: There's no point in loading up a house with a lot of technology that buyers aren't willing to pay for. Cross is confident he can satisfy builders and buyers on all those counts. "They can let buyers pick and choose what was attractive to them," Fish said. "They've certainly made a showcase home there where people have a great menu to come in and say, "I want this' or "We can forget that.' I think people will see things they want in their house. I know I did!" (He was particularly enamored of the motorized circular air-conditioning ductwork.) The house represents something of a step forward for Gold Crest. Until 18 months ago, the most expensive home Gold Crest had ever built cost $225,000, including homesite, he said. Now they're starting work on a house on Lake Rosso priced around $600,000 plus homesite. "We think we're setting a performance standard for the future for houses," Cross said. "We're just getting started. We want to create the leading edge." * * * What: Parade of Homes, showcase of 32 new model homes, sponsored by the Citrus County Builders Association. When: Today through March 3. Homes are open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Where: At sites around the county. Tabloids with maps, directions and descriptions are available at the models, the Citrus County Builders Association (1196 S Lecanto Highway, Inverness) and coffee shops around the county. (There are several models at Sugarmill Woods, Citrus Springs and Pine Ridge, which might give visitors a starting point.) Information: Citrus County Builders Association, (352) 746-9028 weekdays.
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