Know This Before Buying a Home
If you’re not in a certified energy-efficient home, you may be wasting money on energy costs you shouldn’t have to pay, often without even knowing it.
If you’re not in a certified energy-efficient home, you may be wasting money on energy costs you shouldn’t have to pay, often without even knowing it.
This issue of the New Home Guide features an elite group of home builders who have stepped up to a leadership role in the construction of high-performance, energy efficient homes in the Rio Grande Valley.
Affordable Homes of South Texas (AHSTI), a 501c3 non-profit Corporation, is dedicated to providing homeownership opportunities, including bi-lingual homeownership counseling and education, for low income residents in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas
For the fifth year in a row, Villanueva Construction has been recognized with the award for certifying the highest number of homes in the BUILT TO SAVE® program during the previous year.
Divine Custom Homes has a distinguished history of being committed to energy efficient construction. The company’s founder, Olga Treviño, embraced the building science of energy efficient construction from the start and has never wavered. Olga is one of a few “hands-on” builders who not only personally supervises the work on the job site, but who has the knowledge and skills to actually work alongside her contractors.
In 2003, Felix Hernandez established Treasure Builders. The company is a family-owned business that has a reliable reputation for quality homes built by people who are deeply rooted in the traditional family values of honesty, truth, and faith.
Since 2004, Waldo Homes has earned an outstanding reputation for building exceptional luxury custom homes in the Rio Grande Valley. This family-owned and managed company has been consistently recognized with awards for excellence in construction in Parade of Homes competitions—and there have been many over the years, including winning most of the awards in two back-to-back Parade of Homes competitions.
Founded in 2013 by Emigdio Villanueva, Jr. and his sons Emigdio Villanueva, III and David Villanueva, Villa Homes has quickly distinguished itself as a company that constructs fine quality homes with features and details that other companies consider as upgrades.
Villanueva Construction was recognized for certifying the most homes in the BUILT TO SAVE® High-Performance Home Program for the fourth year in a row.
HERS Raters inspect a home while it is under construction, and then test the home when completed (1) to visually verify that it complies with construction requirements and, using specialized software and equipment, (2) to determine its energy efficiency performance.
BUILT TO SAVE™ is a voluntary high-performance home program for builders which certifies new homes using independent third-party home energy Raters that inspect and test homes in the program and predict their energy efficiency.
The benefits of the BUILT TO SAVE™ program for homebuyers that include savings on utilities, better indoor air, and enhanced home comfort are rooted in the whole-house systematic approach to good building science.
The rewards for those that buy energy-efficient homes are many and huge: lower utility bills, tighter quality construction, a more comfortable home with better indoor air, and peace of mind, to name a few. But what’s in it for the builder?
Installing or upgrading appliances to natural gas can make a home cozy, improve its value, and help us save money.
You would think there would be more supervision over the production of a product, like a home, that often requires all of a person’s life savings to buy. But there isn’t. Ask for proof. Ask for a high-performance certificate.
BUILT TO SAVE™ is an energy-efficiency certification program which recognizes new homes that outperform minimum code building requirements. With the help of the BTS program and third-party inspectors, the builder is guided through a process which leads to certifying their homes as high-performance. In this blog post, we present to you with some of the most common energy performance issues, and we also present to you the benefits of owning a “BUILT TO SAVE” certified home.
A special training workshop for builders, the On-Site Field Training & Workshop for New Home Construction, took place on February 18, 2020. It included 3 hours of classroom instruction and continued after lunch on two jobsites: one with a home in the framing stage and one in the completed stage.
Choosing the right insulation and ensuring that it is properly installed is critical for homes in the Rio Grande Valley.
When we purchase a new home, healthy indoor air is something we assume we will get, but that may not always be the case. According to the EPA, Americans spend an average of 90% of their time indoors where, most often, the concentrations of some pollutants are 2 to 5 times higher than is typically found in outdoor air.
Affordable Homes of South Texas, Inc. (AHSTI), received the 2019 “Most Homes Certified BUILT TO SAVE™ Award” for building the highest number of BUILT TO SAVE™ certified homes in the Non-Profit Builders’ division.
The BUILT TO SAVE™ program is one available to builders that provides homebuyers the proof they need to know that their home was quality-built and is guaranteed to be more energy efficient than a similar home built only to current national code.
