Welcome to The ABC Green Home 1.0

ABC Green Home Magazine – Publisher’s Note: January 2013

Hello Readers in print and online,

Welcome to the ABC Green Home magazine. Within these pages you will discover how the affordable, buildable, certified ABC Green Home 1.0 came to life over 18 months, from February 2011 to October 2012, when the home was completed at the Great Park in Irvine, Calif. This project got started as a partnership between Southern California Edison’s energy-efficiency program and Green Home Builder magazine. We sought to demonstrate to the home building industry, the trades and the general public that it is possible to design and build a very energy-efficient home on a smaller footprint — in this case 1,695 square feet — while still providing a very livable and comfortable environment for the homeowners. Our project architect Manny Gonzalez from Irvine-based KTGY Group Inc., was asked to design this home to provide the most efficient use of the space, while also providing the most comfortable and practical layout and floor plan. Gonzalez also added Universal Design to the mix. This is the applied principal of aging in place. The home can now be used as you go through the different stages of life. Wider doors, lowered work stations, accessible switches and outlets, arthritis foundation approved window catches and touchless faucets make this possible.

With our engineering partner Saeed Bekam from Gouvis Engineering in Newport Beach providing the design for the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, we opted for an all-electric home utilizing heat exchange technology to provide heat, cold air and hot water. As with any energy-efficient home offered, it is very important to have third-party certification of the design, systems, construction and energy-efficiency by an approved rating company. Don Neff and his team from La Jolla Pacific in Irvine, Calif., handled the certification process. The ABC Green Home will be provided six separate ratings from different agencies to attest to its efficient design and energy use. The home is designed for Net Zero energy usage — which is to say, over the course of a year the homeowner’s energy bill will be zero. Carrie Peltzer from Venture One Design did an outstanding job with the interior design. Working with a tight budget designed for an affordable home, Peltzer came up with a very easy to love and livable design that compliments the home beautifully. Over 70 firms participated in the ABC Green Home Project. We are most grateful for the expertise and enthusiasm provided by each of them; our builders Ben and Tim Anderson of BCA Development in Newport Beach, Calif., and Eddie Ponce our knowledgeable and hard working on site Superintendent.

You can see them all within the pages of this magazine. There are a lot of products and ideas that you might consider in your own home, or for a builder to provide to their homebuyers. We were very excited when the Chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), Barry Rutenberg, came to visit as construction neared completion during the summer.

On behalf of my colleagues at Peninsula Publishing I would like to take this opportunity to extend our thanks to Southern California Edison company, John Morton and all of the hard working folks at SCE, for allowing us an opportunity to partner with them to develop this fine home. The home will remain on display at the Great Park during the Solar Decathlon competition in October 2013. Following which, it will be picked up and donated to Habitat for Humanity to provide to a combat disabled U.S. Veteran and their family. As we get set to build the ABC Green Home 2.0 in the summer of 2013 with Habitat and SCE, you can follow our progress by visiting abcgreenhome.com.

Thank you for your interest in the ABC Green Home 1.0.

Slainte,

Nick Slevin

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
nslevin@penpubinc.com