Know This Before Buying a Home

Many home shoppers fall in love with how the home looks when what they should be equally focused on is how the home will perform. Think about it this way. The home’s beauty will not give you the things that should be most important to a homebuyer: comfort, a healthy environment, and energy savings.

THE THINGS YOU CAN’T SEE ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT

Unfortunately, you won’t experience a home’s comfort, air quality, or know how high your utility bill will be until you buy it and move in. If you are unhappy with any of the things, by then it will be too late to do anything about it. For example, if the cooling and heating unit in the home is too big for the size of the home, the unit will cycle on, cool the home quickly, and turn off before it has a chance to remove all the humidity in the rooms. This will create an uncomfortable, clammy living environment and in the long run will result in higher energy bills, potential moisture issues, and require more frequent repairs on your unit.

The insulation, which is hidden behind the walls, is typically another unknown but extremely important to your comfort, air quality, and utility bills. You must trust that it is the right type, used in the proper areas, and was installed correctly unless you were there to verify, assuming you knew what to look for.

A home that is certified as a high-performance home, such as a BUILT TO SAVE® home, addresses the sizing of the air-conditioning unit by using a third-party energy Rater who reviews the unit’s heating and cooling loads to ensure it is sized correctly.

WOULD YOU BUY A CAR WITHOUT KNOWING ITS TRUE COST OF OWNERSHIP?

The true cost of a home is not only its list price. It should include the cost of owning that home. Yet you would be surprised that most people do not know how much electricity will be consumed by their new home. It’s like buying a car without knowing how many miles you will getper gallon. Until recently, there was no way to know how much energy a home would consume until you moved. As a result, you had to cross your fingers and hope you purchased an energy-saving property. Often, people are blinded by what they see—beauty—and fail to ask about the most important features of a home: comfort, energy performance, healthy indoor air, and durability.

No more. Today, thanks to energy efficiency programs such as BUILT TO SAVE®, you can buy a home with the peace of mind that an independent, third-party energy home Rater verified that the home met the strict requirements of a high-performance home certification. By using special software and the home specifications, the Rater can predict how much energy the home will consume before it is built. The Rater also inspects the home during construction to verify proper insulation installation and other areas that impact the home’s envelope.

Lastly, the Rater performs a blower door test and duct leakage test once the home is completed. This final inspection produces a Home Energy RatingScore (HERS) that is widely accepted as the best indicator of how well the home will perform when it comes to energy usage

The State of Texas requires that every new home built after August 1, 2016, have a blower door and duct leakage test. The blower door test is performed to find out how much air comes in and goes out through the home’s roof, windows, doors, and walls to measure the leakiness of the home’s envelope. The duct blaster test measures leaks in the ductwork of the HVAC system. This ensures heating and cooling systems arent wasting energy.

ASK FOR A BUILT TO SAVE®HIGH-PERFORMANCE VERIFIED HOME

The goal of our BUILT TO SAVE® program is to offer an option to homebuyers who want more than a home built to minimum code standards. It also provides builders a way to differentiate themselves from those who are satisfied building to bare minimum standards. More importantly, the RESNET-certified Ratersdoing the inspections and testing for the BUILT TOSAVE® program are key in providing the proof of high performance. The BUILT TO SAVE® certificate that the homebuyers receive will be invaluable if they decide to sell the home in the future. Studies have shown that certified high-performance homes demand a higher resale value and sell faster.

BUY WITH CONFIDENCE AND PEACE OF MIND. BUY A HOME FROM A BUILDER MEMBER OF THE BUILT TO SAVE®PROGRAM

The BUILT TO SAVE® program is voluntary, which is how you know you’ve found a builder that cares about the quality of their homes. These builders are leaders in energy-efficient construction because they recognize the benefits that energy-efficient homes offer homeowners and are willing to go above and beyond what is required by minimum code.

So, when looking for a company to construct your new home, be sure to seek out a builder that has made a commitment to investing in high-performance homes. You can trust that they will use the most energy-efficient building systems to ensure you save money and enjoy your new home more. And it’s not just the builder saying that. It’s a licensed, independent home energy Rater who verifies it with a BUILT TO SAVE® certificate.