National Lumber's Blog

Many builders are still trying to get their heads around the relatively new certification program known as LEED. There seems to be so much involved, without a huge amount of payback to them. Of course, the overall ownership costs do end up being lower, especially in energy cost savings. However, there are other advantages to building to LEED certification standards besides selling the energy savings, including greater quality construction, increased comfort, and fewer callbacks for construction issues. Because of these benefits, contractors that build such buildings actually have increased customer satisfaction, an increased referral rate and higher sale values. Overall, since green building is growing in popularity among home buyers, building green also means more sales and more profit.

LEED does have a lot of steps and prerequisites, but the U.S. Green Building Council website outlines everything you need to know on their website (www.usgbc.org) and there are plenty of tools and resources on the Web to help. National Lumber also has many of the green building materials and supplies you’ll need for your projects to reach LEED certification status: insulation, doors & windows, FSC-certified and engineered lumber, and drywall, as well as expert engineering and design services to make sure you are building the best-performing building that you can.