DOE and BASF Present Second Annual Builders Challenge Awards
January 20, 2010
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), along with BASF Chemical Company, honored five U.S. builders for their exceptional achievements in high-performance building at the Second Annual BASF Builders Challenge Awards on Jan. 19, 2010 during the 2010 International Builders Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Led by DOE, the Builders Challenge is working with homebuilders across America toward the ultimate goal of providing cost-effective, net-zero energy homes for all Americans.
Awardees include David Weekley Homes (Texas) for qualifying the most homes (280), Artistic Homes (New Mexico), Ecofutures Building, Inc. (Colorado), Tim O’Brien Homes, Inc. (Wisconsin), and Yavapai College (Arizona).
To qualify for the Builders Challenge, homes must rate 70 or better on the EnergySmart Home Scale (E-Scale), a DOE tool that allows homebuyers to evaluate the energy efficiency of a particular home. Homes that achieve this score use at least 30% less energy than a typical new home built to code.Winners must also satisfy the Builders Challenge Quality Criteria—safety, health and quality standards—established by more than a decade of research by the Building America Program.
DOE has qualified more than 1,850 homes as part of the Builders Challenge. The estimated 1.3 million homes built by 2030 under this initiative will save an estimated $1.7 billion in energy costs, while also providing the highest quality homes available in the market.
Visit DOE's Building America Web site for more information and to read case studies of homes constructed by this year's winners.