Building Responsibly

It's wonderful that we're finally seeing signs of spring, here in Northern Wisconsin.
The ice is off of most of our lakes, the Loons are returning, the Black Bear have awakened and fishing season will be open shortly.
It won't be long and our customer base of non-resident, second home and land owners will be here for another summer.
We're looking forward to the opportunity of being of service and of having another productive year of responsible home building and remodeling.

As the cost of fuel continues to rise, I ask myself; what will it take?
How much pain and suffering will it require for the average consumer to understand the importance of building responsibly?
We talk, talk, talk about green this and energy efficient that, but when it comes down to the bottom line, few step up to the plate and make the responsible decision to invest in what we call, "first costs" of building energy efficient homes and remodeling projects.
"First costs" are the additional expenses necessary to build homes and remodels that will make them super-energy efficient.
Invest the extra $5,000. now, reap $25,000. in savings over a 10 year period.
We look upon first costs, as investments in the future.
As energy prices continue to soar, savings will increase and pay-back periods will shorten.

The fact of the matter is that by building super-energy efficient homes and remodel projects, our clients will save large sums of money for the life of the home or remodel and will make a major contribution to helping to reduce the environmental impact their project would have made otherwise.
It seems like such a win-win to me, I can't understand how someone would choose to do anything less.

The building products community has made huge advancement's in technology and have made available products that are super-energy efficient, are stronger and help to promote healthy indoor environments.
Take for instance, our Enercept SIPs and Serious Windows home packages.

We've developed building envelope packages that will put builders and homeowners on the path to Passive House and Net-Zero Energy design standards.
What could be better than thumbing your nose at the oil industry, living in a dwelling that will continue to save you large sums of money, be 2-1/2 times stronger than conventionally built homes and have safe, health, indoor-air quality.
Imagine a home that is 80% efficient, or one that consumes no energy that has been produced by fossil fuels.

Make no mistake. This is what will need to be done, if man plans to inhabit this earth in the future.

We've taken the time, put forth the effort and paid the price, in order to learn and understand the science of building.
The holistic approach that we take during design and execution phases ensures that our homes and remodels are super-energy efficient, durable, safe and perform as a system of systems.
We refer to this style of building as "future proofing".

As of this week, we're starting to see a genuine increase of interest in our product offerings.
People are starting to understand that to this day, most major brands of window still contribute to 25%-30% of heat loss in the typical application.
Our ultimate Serious Windows are 300% more efficient than most brand name, run of the mill Energy Star Rated windows.

It's time we move beyond run of the mill performance.
Close enough or business as usual just isn't going to cut it any longer.

For us, it's all about our core value of helping people.
Helping people to avoid the terrible impact of moving beyond peak oil and global warming is our main goal and gives us a real mission with purpose.

We're hoping to build an audience and hope that you will follow us through these interesting times.
We're looking forward to making a real impact in the building community.

Visit our website www.greatlakescarpentry.com and contact us today.
We'd like to hear your opinion and field any questions you might have about building science.
We love to talk about saving money, energy and our environment.

Thanks, for dropping in,

Randy
Great Lakes Carpentry, Inc.