Bellasol – Green Amenities at an Affordable Value

Green Home Builder

June 23, 2014

Since its inception in 1988, Garbett Homes has been making award winning homes for over 30 years. With a love of homebuilding at a young age, Bryson Garbett started in construction with framing at a mere 18 years-old. The Company’s experience and longevity are only bettered by their desire to impress each homebuyer or renter with the best possible experience. They are proud to build affordable homes with style and class and strive to offer the most up-to-date technology and design available. Garbett Homes has built over 3, 500 homes and apartments in more than 25 communities.

The Company has won numerous Community of the Year awards given by the Salt Lake Home Builders Association. The building industry recognizes their outstanding achievement in community design, construction, architecture, innovation and sustainable development.

Being the first of its kind, Bellasol at Rosecrest, is one of Garbett Homes very first net-zero homebuilding project as well as for the Utah area. This brilliant home produces much more energy than it uses. Rosecrest master planned community features many other great amenities such as over ten miles of improved trails, open spaces, even a lake to support an active lifestyle. Garbett homes has teamed up with California-based KTGY architects to bring an exciting and innovative home designs. Bellasol is the perfect place to call home, nestled in the foothills of the scenic Oqurrih Mountains, with sweeping panoramic views of the Salt Lake valley.

The design is a modern, energy efficient home that is big on performance while staying within the price range of the average home buyer. These single family homes range from 3,543 square feet to 5,197 square feet with a total of 13 units. These solar powered beauties start at $420,000. Bellasol is HER-1 green party certified. This project exemplifies Garbett Homes’ years of experience and their capability to apply the knowledge they have with building energy efficient homes. Many homebuyers struggle with finding affordable housing, adding green features in the past has always been on the upper end of home pricing. Garbett Homes makes it a goal to provide both affordability and environmentally friendly homes to their potential buyers.

“As we move forward and energy prices continue to rise, energy efficient home will play a critical role in our country’s energy plan,” said Paul Garbett, marketing director of Garbett Homes. “We feel like we’re leading the way for other builders to see that not only is it possible, but it can be profitable to build energy efficient homes.”

They chose to build Bellasol in Herriman, Utah because it is a quickly growing suburb in Salt Lake City containing affordable homes with a great lifestyle. “We plan on continuing to innovate and develop solutions for energy efficient homes,” explained Garbett. “We believe that homeowners shouldn’t have to choose between performance and affordability.” The Company plans on learning from the design of the net-zero home and using it in their homebuilding projects, but staying reasonable across the board in terms of price.

Green building is the practice of using better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal — the complete building life cycle — to increase the efficiency of use of resources and impacts on human health and the environment. The net-zero was a custom build because there is only one in the community. The other homes will still feature the same type of insulation (blow-in and spray foam), but the main difference is the amount of solar panels; the remaining 12 units will come equipped with a 1.4kwh solar array as part of the base price compared to Vivint Solar’s 10.29 kilowatt solar photovoltaic energy system, which decreases the Zero Home’s HERS rating from approximately a five to a 28. Currently, Vivint is the largest home automation services provider in the North America with 800,000 units installed. And Vivint has been aggressively expanding into solar in the past year. Vivint Solar, which only started in the past year, is already the second largest residential home installer in the U.S.

Advanced framing techniques, sophisticated insulation, air sealing, tight ducts, and air barriers all work together to control air and moisture flow and keep the Zero Home’s utility bills as low as possible.

To ensure the highest air quality, the Zero Home has received the EPA Indoor Air Plus Qualification. The home also has an air change rate of less than one, which means that air does not escape from the home. All framing materials, pre-cut floor joists, and prebuilt trusses in the Zero Home will use fewer resources that are also stronger than traditional materials. All construction wood is SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) certified, and 100 percent of waste is recycled at local facilities. The Zero Home includes solar hot water and two 94 percent super-efficient Noritz EchoTough natural gas condensing tankless water heaters. It also features a 96 percent efficient natural gas back-up furnace with ultra-high efficient motors for main blower as well as inducer motors. The Zero Home includes Vivint’s programmable smart thermostat that can be controlled remotely using a smartphone or tablet. It’s part of how the Zero Home has become a net-zero house. The Zero Home monitors energy flow into and out of the home with real-time energy analytics. Residents can know how much energy they’re consuming, allowing them to make changes during the month and lower their bills through simple lifestyle adjustments.

New materials for homes are available, but most homebuilders don’t utilize them. Homes have to be adaptive in design and in use. Garbett Homes is always looking for the best ways to implement current technology in their homes. The Company continues to venture into multiple states as they brand themselves as a national homebuilder.

Garbett Homes has done what no other homebuilder has attempted to do and that is listen to their homebuyer and their environment. They have been able to create a set of nearly zero energy homes with the exception of one and make them completely available to the average homebuyer. “We plan on taking the lessons with building a net zero home and applying it to regular homes in a way that incorporates the latest tech, but remains affordable,” stated Garbett.