Renewed Commitment: Future Looking Bright for Blue Horizons Project By Cari Barcas With more than two years of success in meeting the goals outlined for its community-focused campaign, Blue Horizons Project is excited for the next phase in its evolution and an expanded involvement in the region’s efforts to...
Article Category: Financial Incentives
Douglas Ager: Sweet Spot: Custom Home Balances Comfort and Environmental Responsibility
Sweet Spot: Custom Home Balances Comfort and Environmental Responsibility By Douglas Ager Mike Herrick loves Western North Carolina for the area’s temperate year-round climate, and his wife Ellen wanted to live closer to their grandchildren on the east coast. But their shared goal when building their new custom house...
Amy Musser and Matthew Vande: Bang For Your Buck: 7 Ways To Use Your Stimulus Check For Energy-Efficiency Improvements
Bang For Your Buck: 7 Ways To Use Your Stimulus Check For Energy-Efficiency Improvements By Amy Musser and Matthew Vande [caption id="attachment_5143" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Weatherstripping is installed on the front door of a local home. ENERGY SAVERS NETWORK PHOTO.[/caption] So you received your economic impact payment from the federal...
Ariane Kjellquist: Affordable for the Long Haul: Habitat Tests New Style of Housing in Curry Court
Affordable for the Long Haul: Habitat Tests New Style of Housing in Curry Court Ariane Kjellquist On 2.7 acres in Candler, not far from shopping and services, is a thriving community of 12 certified Green Built Homes created by Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity. Previously the site of five abandoned...
Susanna Shetley: Tiny Home Havens: Tiny Home Communities Develop in WNC
Tiny Home Havens: Tiny Home Communities Develop in WNC By Susanna Shetley Tiny-home living has been growing in popularity over the past decade, and the advent of the coronavirus crisis may intensify that surge. With modern society craving more time outdoors and more money for travel and leisure, tiny...
Planting for Future Generations: A Journey Toward Bioregional Food Resilience
Planting for Future Generations: A Journey Toward Bioregional Food Resilience Danu Macon For millennia, the land we know as Western North Carolina has nourished and provided a home for thousands of species of animals, plants and fungi. The web of life here in these mountains contains a grand diversity...
Tom Owens: Certifying it Twice
Certifying it Twice: High-Performance Home Receives ENERGY STAR® 3 and Green Built Homes Certifications Tom Owens Clients came to us a few years ago in search of someone who could both design and build a home that would be environmentally friendly, energy efficient and structurally durable. They had a...
Leigha Dickens: Coulda, Would, Shoulda
Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda: (Flawed) Reasons People Don’t Use Green Building Certification Programs Leigha Dickens If I had a dollar for every time a client chose not to certify their custom new home through a third-party green-building program, then I’d have more dollars than you might think. Even among clients...
Lee Warren and Richard Freudenberger: Sustainability Simplified
Sustainability Simplified: Ten Solutions In and Around Your Home Lee Warren and Richard Freudenberger Life is full. We understand. That’s why we made a list of sustainability solutions that are easy, fun, and hopefully doable. If you pick three to implement each year for three years, then you’ll nearly...
Cari Barcas: Setting the Course for Clean Energy
Setting the Course for Clean Energy: Blue Horizons Project Empowers Community to Conserve Energy and Preserve Region By Cari Barcas Resulting from a two-year collaboration between local government, business, nonprofit and environmental leaders, the Blue Horizons Project is a comprehensive hub of energy-efficiency programs to empower community members to...