When your “standard” model home far exceeds the building code, what do you do for an upgrade? You double down. At the VISION House Las Vegas: Crossing the Rubicon project, Beazer Homes, in partnership with Green Builder Media, is demonstrating that new homes built at scale can meet the Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home (ZERH) standards.
By the end of the year (if not sooner), all of Beazer’s homes going forward in every community will be Beazer READY homes that match ZERH standards, estimated to be 40 percent to 50 percent more efficient than a typical new home, among other stringent requirements.
“This entire project has been designed with sustainable living in mind, including the products that we’ve chosen for each model,” says Justin Anderson, director of operations for Beazer Homes. “Our homes were already highly energy efficient, and the base model, The Aurora, is well ahead of code. It’s been really cool to take it to another level with our upgraded model, The Vision.”
The VISION House Las Vegas homes are on display at the 2,200-acre master planned community of Cadence in Henderson, Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas. The project includes two furnished model homes and a deconstructed model to demonstrate what’s behind the walls in Beazer’s READY homes.
“To a homebuyer, the upgraded model won’t look much different from an architectural or design point of view than the base model,” says Elicia Trujillo, director of product and design for Beazer Homes. “To see the upgrades and understand them takes peeling back another layer of details and looking at the actual equipment on a more granular level. For the general buyer, it would be hard to spot all the differences until we call attention to them. That’s where the deconstructed model comes in.”
The Vision model represents the culmination of years of planning at Cadence and decades of Beazer’s experience refining their designs and embracing new sustainable solutions.
“The whole ZERH strategy and concept go back to the initial land planning and the decision to make this an all-electric community,” Trujillo says. “That meant planning and coordination with site development teams, early on, to ensure all aspects of the stringent [Department of Energy] requirements are met.”
Homeowners will benefit from a lower total cost of ownership and a higher level of comfort and quiet, she says.
“It would be very difficult and costly to retrofit a house to meet the standards of The Vision house,” Trujillo says. “The quality assurance starts in the planning and design stage, and runs through the purchasing, construction and installation.”
Both the standard Aurora model and The Vision model rely on numerous products and systems working together to achieve higher levels of energy efficiency while maintaining a comfortable, healthy and quiet home environment.
“Visitors to the model homes can go through the deconstructed model to see a behind-the-walls view of the building science and products that differentiate these homes,” Anderson says.
Both the standard home and the upgraded model feature 2-by-6 exterior walls with DuPont Tyvek wrap and blown-in cellulose fiber from Greenfiber, which establishes a tight building envelope. Both models also feature insulated garage doors from Windsor Door.
In the upgraded model, Westlake provided a cool roof system with vents that contributes to the comfort and energy efficiency of the house.
“The roof doesn’t appear that different, but with advances in building science we see the energy benefits,” Trujillo says.
The cool roof has a batten system underneath the tile that creates a thermal air break between the roof deck and the tile surface. Besides allowing air flow, the roof reflects some of the sun’s power back out into the stratosphere to limit the radiant heat coming into the house, Anderson says.
The standard model home has an extremely effective and efficient 15 SEER heat pump. Beazer added a 16 SEER variable speed model in The Vision model, Anderson says.
“The variable speed model is a really cool product because it’s a smaller unit, but it works more efficiently,” he says. “The variable speed means that you use less power when it’s first turned on. Instead, the condenser kicks on and runs to get to the right temperature before it ramps up.”
On the energy consumption side, both models feature ENERGY STAR appliances from Whirlpool, and a heat pump water heater from Rheem. However, The Vision model includes two appliance upgrades: an induction cooktop and a heat pump dryer from Whirlpool.
“The heat pump dryer is not only more energy efficient, because it takes energy that’s already in the house to heat up, but it’s also easier on your clothes because it’s a softer and gentler dryer,” Anderson says.
While both the standard model and The Vision model have solar panels from Sunnova and a smart electrical panel from Span to manage and monitor their power usage, the upgraded model goes a step further toward self-sufficiency.
“Both homes have solar panels and a power management system to minimize the load on the grid. And we added a battery backup system to be able to store your power for use at different times or during an outage,” Anderson says. “Being able to go 100 percent solar and store it takes renewable energy to a new level.”
In the Las Vegas desert climate and numerous other regions around the U.S., water conservation is becoming as vital an issue as energy efficiency. All of Beazer’s homes include WaterSense products that meet EPA standards.
Moen’s low-flow fixtures and faucets are installed in both models at VISION House Las Vegas. The upgraded model also includes Moen’s FloSense smart leak detector system, which monitors water consumption and alerts homeowners to potential leaks.
The system can shut off water automatically if a major leak is detected. Homeowners can monitor their water and shut it off remotely with an app, Anderson says.
“In the upgraded model, we also installed Moen’s smart sprinkler system, which takes irrigation to a new level,” Anderson says. “It has a soil detector that can tell if a plant doesn’t need to be watered, so it will shut off that one sprinkler. It also has a rain detection system to automatically shut off the sprinklers when it rains.”
The VISION House Las Vegas project provides a showcase for more than energy efficiency—it’s also a model for a healthy lifestyle with better indoor air quality, a quiet and organized home, and a connection to nature and outdoor activities.
“Eliminating gas from the conversation is about improving your internal indoor environment,” Trujillo says. “Our homes are qualified under the EPA Indoor AirPlus program, which means we rely on ERVs for ventilation, but we also focus on achieving better air quality by limiting emitting gases in any capacity through appliances, paints or glues. That all contributes to the quality of air that we’re breathing day in and day out.”
Numerous products that support better indoor air quality are in both models, including energy recovery ventilators (ERVs) from Broan NuTone and low-VOC paint from Sherwin-Williams. In The Vision model, enhancements that provide an extra level of healthy air include upgraded bathroom fans from Broan NuTone and zero-VOC paint from Sherwin-Williams.
“You can hear and see the difference in the bathroom fans because they look sleeker and they’re quieter,” Anderson says. “The Sherwin-Williams paint is great in both houses, but the paint in the upgraded model includes air purifying technology.”
PureTech flooring from Mohawk in The VISION model, which contributes to better indoor air quality, is a PVC-free product made from 70 percent recycled content.
A few products in the upgraded model showcase features that contribute to homeowners’ mental and physical wellness. In the kitchen, a reverse osmosis water system from Moen provides cleaner, healthier drinking water and eliminates the need for bottled water.
An organized, secure home can support a calmer mind and better mental health. To that end, the LiftMaster MyQ garage door opener and smart home app offers remote monitoring and security in the standard and upgraded model. Resideo’s
First Alert smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are also installed in both models.
Organized Living’s systems in the pantry and primary walk-in closet in The Vision model make it easier to keep those storage spaces neater.
Beautiful and easy to maintain countertops and backsplashes from Daltile add to the sense of serenity in the VISION House Las Vegas homes, along with architecture that makes the most of indoor-outdoor living.
“In every room, your eyes are drawn to the outdoors, which is especially fitting in this community, where nearly everyone hikes and spends as much time as they can outside,” Anderson says.
One change to Beazer’s floor plan concepts driven by their whole-house approach to comfort and livability was moving the mechanical equipment out of the attic.
“Mechanical equipment takes up a lot of space, and we know that buyers see value in things like oversized pantries and additional storage space,” Trujillo says. “We had to adapt and adjust the grand spaces in our public areas and our kitchens to make sure homeowners don’t feel like they had to sacrifice something they want in lieu of something that’s less understandable like the mechanical closet.”
Still, Trujillo was able to place mechanical equipment in the central area of the house without compromising the spaces buyers want.
“That central area is the ideal spot to have a lot of the ‘guts’ of the house. Keeping them centralized allows us to minimize materials and efficiently lay out mechanical and plumbing lines,” Trujillo says. “The result is a more efficient and comfortable home with sustainability in mind.”
While each individual product and system contributes to the sustainability and comfort of the homes that are part of VISION House Las Vegas, that “whole-house approach” is what pulls them all together into highly efficient and appealing homes.