Tech House, now being built by Vision Homes in the new Trillium subdivision off Sarasota's Proctor Road, will become the first demonstration house to receive "green" certification from the Florida Green Building Coalition, said "green" construction consultant Drew Smith of Two Trails Inc. Vision Homes and the Home Builders Association of Sarasota County hired Smith to certify that the house is built to FGBC standards. Smith recently became an accredited professional of the LEED program (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).
Tech House will be ready for the Parade of Homes in late February, and will be open for about a year and a half. It's being built as a fund-raiser for the HBA.
“They’re doing a lot of neat things to it because it’s more than just building green,” said Smith. “They’re putting a lot of the newer technology into it … over and above (the FGBC standards).”
Among them:
-- A hurricane-shelter room.
-- Solar pavers in the pool deck so the pool will be heated from the solar decking material.
-- Super high-efficiency air conditioning.
-- Flapperless toilets.
-- Injected foam in the block walls, raising the R value from R-8 to about R-11, Smith said. There's also icynene insulation in the sealed attic.
-- Florida Yards & Neighborhoods certified with WaterWise landscaping.
-- Impact-glass on all windows except rear sliders, which will have Fabric Shield.
-- Spraying all interior framing wood with mold-resistant treatment. “It’s well worth doing and very inexpensive.”
The building won’t look like Florida House, but will act like it, said Smith. “It will be a newer version of it. We keep looking at new technologies.”