Sustainable and Attainable Urban Family Residence

HOME DESCRIPTION:

The project’s goal was to create a template of sustainable and locally-sourced construction that could, should, and would be replicated throughout the city. To ensure this, the template needed to include materials, contractors, and a timeline that would be accessible, appealing, & similarly-priced to other homes with equivalent function.

Given the need for a greater number of affordable contractors with LEED-oriented knowledge, the project team comprised contractors and sub-contractors with little LEED exposure combined with those that had more exposure. The collaboration that ensued led to an increase in the number of local contractors familiar with sustainable building knowledge usable on future projects. MV Properties & Construction and its proprietor Milos Vlaovic performed the General Contracting on this, his first, LEED-certified project.

Some keys to achieving these goals were finding the highest-ROI energy-usage-reduction features and low-cost sustainable materials. For the former, the key choices included closed-cell foam insulation, sub-floor & building shell Styrofoam insulation, triple-pane windows, direct-roof-mounted solar panels, dimmable LED lighting, and sunlight orientation (windows facing East). For the latter, the foci were cost-effective bamboo flooring, low-visibility material-substitutions (e.g., tile for quartz around fireplaces), reduced appliance ‘bling’, modest room downsizing, and maximum local/US sourcing.

CERTIFICATIONS:
LEED for Homes (Gold)
HERS Rating: 41
Air Tightness: 1.9 ach@50 pa

GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
MV Properties & Construction LLC
www.mvpropertiesandconstruction.com
2635 W Lawrence Ave 1A, 60625 Chicago, IL
312-593-3939
MV Properties & Construction LLC is a general contractor in Chicago specializing in new construction, home remodeling and now Green Home construction.