You want to build a high-performance, green home but don't know where to start. After all, even the simplest single-family home built today is relatively complex, much less a high-performance home. You've come to the right place! Using the National Green Building Standard (NGBS) and Home Innovation’s NGBS Green Certification can make the process of building a green home easier and more affordable than it otherwise would be.
However, the NGBS was designed to be flexible, so it has lots of different options. This may seem daunting, even overwhelming, if you're new to green home building. How does someone approaching the NGBS for the first time decide what practices are the most cost-effective? Or even the most relevant to prospective homebuyers and renters? In an effort to help green builders overcome this challenge, Home Innovation created the NGBS Bronze Cookbooks.
The concept behind these “cookbooks” or roadmaps is simple – it allows you to see which practices are most commonly incorporated into NGBS Green Certified homes.
Home Innovation developed the Bronze Cookbooks by reviewing every NGBS Green Verification Report for homes and multifamily buildings that have attained NGBS Green Certification. Based on that review, we pre-populated NGBS Green Scoring Tools with the most commonly used practices to achieve Bronze-level NGBS Green Certification. Given the widespread use of these specific practices nationally, you can assume they represent the most cost-effective and relevant green practices for residential construction. We also included links, where appropriate, to NGBS Green Certified Product options which can further simplify the up-front selections needed for the certification process.
By identifying cost-effective green practices, the Bronze Cookbooks can save you time and money by streamlining what can otherwise be a complex and extensive decision-making process. But the Cookbooks are just one way to approach NGBS Green Certification – we always encourage builders to strategically select the most appropriate green practices for their projects based on their individual objectives and market drivers.
To start on your path to building NGBS Green Certified homes, download the NGBS Bronze Cookbook, complete it, and talk with an NGBS Green Verifier in your area.
Are you a high-performance builder who has participated with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home (ZERH) program? Are you looking to up your “green game” by seeking dual-certification to ZERH and NGBS Green? The NGBS-ZERH Bronze Cookbook identifies ZERH provisions that help meet mandatory practices and achieve points toward NGBS Green Certification and features additional practices to bridge the gap to achieve Bronze-level compliance. For more information about the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program, visit www.buildings.energy/gov.