It certainly has felt like a festivity for our team at Imery Group. Not because of the beer drinking celebration but for the amazing news and learning opportunities we have had this month.

October started off with our attendance at the Energy and Environment Building Alliance summit – EEBA. Jeremy Field, our in-house building science manager and I had the opportunity to sit in and listen to the brightest minds in high performance buildings speak about fascinating subjects. On one end we had Joe Lstiburek talk about high level physics, and explaining how venting vapors in attics are such an important factor when designing and building homes, and on the other end practical information from high performance builders, such as yours truly, on their do’s and don’ts based on 7! plus years of experience. There were also great tracks about marketing and sales on these types of smart homes. In other words this venue, which is my favorite national conference, has sessions to tailor to a wide variety of audience, from energy geeks like us to more down to earth practical applications, you choose where you want to be!!! The pre-conference was particularly good as it took place at Mitsubishi HVAC head quarters, where the folks a DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program staff, lead by Sam Rashkin, brought us up to date in many available resources on their website and program updates.

Beyond the learning and networking opportunities provided by the EEBA conference, our construction division was once again honored to be the recipient of an Innovation Housing Award for 2017 for a Zero Energy Ready Custom home in Atlanta, GA. This project was very rewarding as it first started as a non-high performance house, and through innovative thinking and skillful budget management we were able to meet the standards of DOE ZERH. Then, right before the conference Mr. Gene Myers, EEBA’s board president and builder with Thrive Homes, invited us to take a permanent board position, which we humbly accepted. We now look forward on making the 2018 EEBA summit in San Diego very successful as well.

When we thought things could not get better, our friends at SouthFace, had planned their annual convening for all EarthCraft technical advisors, followed by their yearly EarthCraft projects celebration. Under our green rating division, we then had a full day of training listening to SouthFace staff speak about program updates, and rebranding of their green building program. I personally believe that the proposed changes and branding repositioning are for the better, and think the program is slated for grow. One improvement is, that now the consumer, builder and technical advisor will be “speaking” the same language. Fuzzy terminology are gone, and the program has been simplified to attract larger audience without sacrificing its core value of delivering a healthy, durable, comfortable and efficient home – more on the specifics of the program on a separate entry. After a good 1/2 day of collaborating with fellow technical advisors, beers, yes that’s right, came out to SouthFace’s green roof for their celebration of Excellency. Guess what? We were also the recipients of another EarthCraft House Excellence Award in design. This award highlights the fact that you can indeed design an astonishing home that excels in performance and healthy benefits to the homeowners without really having to compromise on the style

In closing remarks, we are thrilled that our many years of commitment on designing and building smart homes that are healthy, comfortable, durable and efficient is being recognized in such a way. We encourage everyone, whether you are a potential custom home buyer, builder or green rater to look closely at the benefits that building to EarthCraft House and/or DOE Zero Energy Ready standards provide, and you will soon realized that is a matter of “ you can NOT afford NOT to build like that”, and the beauty of it all is that is as simple to paying attention to the details.