With its Living Smart program, Pardee Homes takes solar and other green building technologies and categorizes them into areas that are really components of green building. Living Smart means energy smart, earth smart, health smart, and—the most recent addition—water smart. These concepts are added to a home's design as options. Unlike other homebuilders, Pardee uses solar energy on a grand scale, incorporating it into hundreds of the new homes it builds.

Pardee Homes' History
The Pardee Homes Company was started in 1921 by George Pardee Sr. Pardee began building custom homes in the Los Angeles area over 80 years ago. His sons George, Hoyt, and Doug eventually took over, building homes in a more production-style operation. This was largely to serve the needs of veterans returning after World War II. The company opened offices in Las Vegas, NV, and San Diego, CA, about 52 years ago. Its corporate headquarters remains in Westwood, CA.

The company at present builds homes primarily in southern California and the Las Vegas area. By 2006, Pardee plans to have homes available in northern California. At the time of this writing, the company has opened offices in Sacramento and Livermore; however, no homes are currently under construction in this region of California.

An Innovator
In recent years, energy innovations have become a hallmark for Pardee Homes. The company has also been one of the leading homebuilders in master-plan community development. The Pardee brothers saw early on that there was a real benefit in developing communities that would include areas for churches, parks, schools, and shopping. One of the first master-planned communities in Las Vegas was built by Pardee Homes. In more recent years, Pardee led the country in building houses equipped with high-speed wiring. This uses digital Category 5E structured wiring instead of old daisy chain–style phone wiring. Category 5E brings all the wiring to a central hub. Nowadays most new homes are wired in this way.

Early Energy-Efficiency Leader
In 1998, Pardee began building homes focusing on energy efficiency, starting with the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Energy Star program (created in 1992). Any home meeting Energy Star's standards is capable of using about 30% less energy than a home built to standard federal energy codes. In California, codes such as Title 24 have even more stringent standards and an Energy Star home will exceed those by 15%.

In 2002, Pardee Homes built its first solar-capable houses. "Though solar power has been around for awhile, it is not something many production builders have been involved in," says Joyce Mason, marketing director for the company. "When we began to expand our energy program to include more energy-saving technology and also some green building technology, such as certified wood and formaldehyde-free insulation, we developed a set of criteria for ourselves," she explains. "That criteria included: looking at the whole house as a system and in relationship to its environment, finding locally supplied materials, locating qualified people in the area to install these materials, finding products with a lengthy warranty, finding products adequately tested or proven, and finding products that would accommodate really good design."

To try to meet these established criteria, Pardee started attending green building shows, green building tours, or anything using green technology in the custom home market. This was its first source of information.

When Pardee Homes started looking at the possibility of using solar power, one of the things it was concerned about was the number of roof penetrations during installation. With each panel there must be two roof penetrations. Thus, a home with 12 panels would have 24 penetrations. "This is a troubling thing for a builder," says Mason. "They want to reduce the number of roof penetrations because each one is a potential exposure to problems later on. This led us to a new design, one featuring a backyard solar-paneled trellis. That would be our solar system of choice. It would hold 12 or 24 panels and would either be a 1.2-kilowatt system or a 2.4-kilowatt system." That represented Pardee Homes' beginning in solar technology for production-style homebuilding.

The company started taking a good look at the "energy smart" component of its program and realized it had to look for things that would not only reduce the demand for energy—but also produce energy. Pardee Homes selected solar as its product of choice.

"I wish I could say that once we put it up, people said, 'Wow, that's what I want,' " says Mason, "but the truth is, solar does cost extra.

"Some people thought it was a great idea and purchased them [solar-capable homes]. It was and still is an additional charge. But even if a customer chooses to not have the solar system added, their home will still be an Energy Star home. That is included with each home we sell. We have made a decision, as a company policy, not to sell any house lower than Energy Star standards."

Solar Power and Zero Energy
Pardee had been working with a company called Astro Power—now part of General Electric (GE)—and continued this relationship as development started on a house in Las Vegas. They were trying to achieve a virtual zero-energy home after the DOE launched its Zero Energy Home (ZEH) program that works with builders to achieve a 50% savings on the average energy bill. It also seeks, over time, to get to zero electricity usage. This is an objective program in stages.

In 2003, Pardee Homes began construction on a house to be showcased at the January 2004 National Homebuilders Show in Las Vegas. Pardee collaborated with the DOE in designing a house that would achieve a 90% savings on energy costs—including gas and electricity. The goal was to get to zero electricity usage. "We are currently testing that house," says Mason. "And we will continue testing for a two-year period. We will then see if our design goals were met.

"Natural gas was kept in that home because most people still like to cook with gas and the HVAC system still uses gas, mainly because those are still very energy-efficient technologies. We just didn't feel we could do any better using an alternative form of energy. Pardee did do some things though, like using a solar hot-water heater on the roof. The house had an 8.6-kilowatt system, partly on the roof and partly on a patio trellis system, so both were used.

Roof-Integrated Solar Systems
Pardee Homes still offers the solar trellis system. It, like many other builders, wants to keep all customer options open. The benefit of the trellis system is that solar power can be expanded. If a homeowner is going to put a patio structure in his yard anyway, the incremental cost to add solar is not that substantial.

But in the last several years, Astro Power brought to Pardee Homes' attention a new program with a roof-integrated solar system it was launching. That seemed to be the answer to the building company's issues with roof penetration. With this new system there were only two roof penetrations, one at the beginning and one at the end of each set of roof-integrated panels.

"The roof-integrated system does so much because it really does blend into the house," says Mason. "But what it does not do is work with 'barrel-tile' roofs. These are also sometimes called S-tiles and they are very common in the Southwest, particularly in California. It is very typical of Spanish-style architecture in such structures as missions. There has not been a roof-integrated system yet for this style roof. Hopefully, GE Solar is working on that."

Pardee first used the roof-integrated system in the Evergreen project in Orange County, CA, in a community called Ladera Ranch. This community was beginning development of Terramore, a 'green village.' The entire village was being designed to be environmentally friendly. Drought-tolerant, environmentally friendly landscape was used, along with very innovative irrigation systems and a land-use plan that favored lots of open space. All the builders working in that village were asked to look at green building technology.

"Pardee had been doing this for a while," says Mason. "Thus we felt we were in a good position to do a nice job. But we wanted to then bring the zero-energy home concepts to production building. Instead of just building it in one house we wanted to bring those same concepts of energy efficiency to production building. The roof-integrated system really offered us a great opportunity to get a system that blended into the roof and met our criteria of good design.

"We then included that roof-tile system in the cost of the house at certain elevations, when you bought that house," says Mason. "But the price of housing is expensive, solar is expensive, and with a roof-integrated system, you are adding $11,000 to $12,000 onto the cost of the house. People have not been coming knocking on our doors saying, 'I've got this extra $12,000 to spend and what I really thought I wanted was a solar system.' "

Beyond Utility Bill Savings
Pardee Homes has estimated that there are substantial savings involved with the installation of the solar units. If a house has a 2.4-kW solar system as well as the ZEH components, including fluorescent lighting and a tankless water heater, homeowners will receive savings of up to 67%—not including the landscaping—on their energy bill. That is a fairly significant savings and it should not take long before homeowners have recouped the cost of their solar system through the savings on their power bills.

"Meanwhile, you are also reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere; you are sending energy back to the utility company during the time of day when the energy is in greatest demand, thus hopefully preventing the need for the construction of more power plants," says Mason. "You are in effect making a contribution to the community at large for others to use energy that you are not using, so there are many reasons to do this beyond simply saving on your energy bill. Because more and more people are interested in doing what's right for the environment, to have a house that does so is becoming more interesting to them."

Pardee and perhaps most other production-style homebuilders still have not reached the point where prospective homebuyers come to them interested in a home only if it has a solar energy system. The typical drivers of home purchases, such as location, good design, price, or floor plan, in the end have more impact on home sales than does energy. "But all things—design, floor plan, location, and price—being equal, if you have two builders right next door to each other, then those individuals who care about the environment will be driven to a builder who also cares about the environment," says Mason.

A Bright Future for Solar
So far, even being this early in the program, things are going well for the new solar-integrated homes by Pardee. There have been no problems with leakage around the solar roof tile penetrations. Pardee's first homebuyers have just started to move into their new homes with the roof-integrated systems.

"To my surprise, there are very few builders that are doing this," offers Mason. "Admittedly other companies have built one house or one neighborhood; other companies are installing this or related solar technology and energy-efficient features, but to make the commitment to build a whole program around green building and environmentally friendly design, I don't know anyone doing this to the extent that we are. Anyone who purchases one of Pardee's Living Smart homes would be getting a good value for their investment."

Pardee Homes now has a number of neighborhoods that are a part of the ZEH program. At the time of this writing, three more neighborhoods were slated to open in February 2005. Also, 2,300 homes currently being built by the company are committed to Living Smart. Pardee has not yet tapped the retirement home market—with such developers as Del Webb—but it is starting to study it. That market is viewed as being a strong one for environmentally friendly design.

To date, the company has six neighborhoods open in Las Vegas with Living Smart design, two under design currently, and one scheduled to open at the end of the year. One obstacle to be overcome in the Las Vegas market is the fact that barrel-style tile roofs are predominant in that area. In that region, Pardee offers something a bit different from the norm, but it is hoping GE will come up with a barrel-style solution to make the choice more appealing to homeowners. For the time being the patio or backyard solar trellis is still available there.

Aesthetic Demands
In October 2004, GE released official news of its latest roof-integrated solar modules. What makes this new technology for private homes unique is the way the integrated tile systems, "blend seamlessly with the roofline, providing a unique combination of functionality, attractiveness and increased property value to homeowners." To those benefits, Ali Iz, general manager of GE Energy's solar technologies division, adds, "It is different because of the superior aesthetics offered by having it fit flush into the roofing material."

Instead of the clunky panels we're all familiar with and that tend to distract the eye from the general outline of any home—no matter how distinctive—the only thing that these new systems do visually is darken some sections of a home's roof tiles. This change in design may be a factor in the growing popularity of the systems.

"Consumer demand for less obtrusive solar products fueled the development of this technology," explains Iz, "and the product in turn, has created a higher customer acceptance for photovoltaic powered homes. The development of aesthetically pleasing products, such as GE Energy's roof-integrated tile, has been critical to reaching this goal."

Customer Collaboration
"This was a collaboration between the GE Energy design team and key national homebuilders," says Iz. "The builders' issues were customer acceptance and the ease of installation. The GE Energy team had some design challenges to create a solar module with a profile similar to the roofing material. Previously, this had never been achieved. But actually the success of this program, despite the challenges, has led to patent applications to protect the unique design features of the product.

"GE Energy was also looking for ease of installation, system performance, and customer acceptance. We are happy to report that the results have exceeded our expectations on all fronts. The close continual collaboration with the customer resulted in a smooth development process with no unforeseen problems," says Iz. "A major lesson learned in the development of this home solar system was that truly successful new product introductions are built on customer feedback and customer-integrated designs."

What the Future Will Look Like
"In the US residential solar market, GE Energy's roof-integrated tile is the most prominent technology," says Iz. "It has gained enthusiastic acceptance by both homebuilders and homeowners. When this product was launched in 2002, the expectation was that it would open new residential construction opportunities for solar installations to become mainstream.

"One of the greatest rewards was in the public response to new housing where the solar system is not only on the front of the house but also now hard to detect. The building integrated systems, I feel, will be the way of the future in many regions not only in the US but worldwide. Most energy analysts believe that point-of-use solar energy systems will play a larger role in the world's energy production mix in the future, as solar energy production generally tracks peak energy demand."

Both Pardee Homes and GE are poised to help California meet the goals in energy self-sufficiency that have been suggested for the future. Pardee Homes, through its Living Smart program and its push for Energy Star standards in all the new homes it builds, has gone beyond what government has called for. Perhaps the rest of the US will take the cue from these two innovative companies and make distributed energy a reality in the area of new residential home construction.

PETER HILDEBRANDT writes extensively on engineering and scientific subjects.

DE - March/April 2005