Earth Advantage (EA) homeowners Crissy Trask and Chris Moore worked hard to ensure their home was EA certified. In September 2011, Trask and Moore bought what they thought was an EA certified condominium. Living in a home built with high efficiency standards was important to Trask, a green author well versed in the benefits of high efficiency homes. (She is the author of Go Green, Spend Less, Live Better: The Ultimate Guide to Saving the Planet, Saving Money, and Protecting Your Health.)
“Your home works as a system,” she noted. “I knew that a home would not perform well if it had energy efficient windows, but inadequate insulation, for example. An EA home has all the energy efficient components necessary to achieve true energy efficiency and savings.”
However, the seller’s real estate agent misrepresented the home’s status and Trask soon learned that her condo was not actually EA certified. It failed to meet the EA certification by one measure. Upset, Trask took it upon herself to figure out what requirements still needed to be met. After learning from EA that a programmable timer was needed on the home’s exhaust fan, she consulted with an HVAC contractor and later installed the necessary timer to complete the certification requirements.
“It was important to me and my husband that our home’s materials and systems had a lighter impact on the earth than standard choices for buildings,” Trask said. “We also wanted to support builders of these types of homes, and we expect that having EA certification will help the resale value of the home.”