Amy Weedon
April 28, 2014
Start Engaging the Apartment Renter Looking for Green Living
Consumers are crying out for ways to live green. They intrinsically believe that it’s the right thing to do. However, when faced with the most important decisions about where to live, green just can’t compete against more important criteria. That’s fine, because living green is an important part of each box prospects are looking to check.
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Michelle Foster
April 17, 2014
Quality is Key
This week I was on a mission to purchase sneakers. I am a loyal consumer to a brand known for their technological innovations and superior performance. Given their extensive product line, I sought to narrow my choice by reading online customer reviews. What I learned was interesting, and a problem not unfamiliar to the residential construction industry: they lost control of their quality.
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Cindy Wasser, MBA
April 15, 2014
Reasons to Select NGBS Land Development Certification over LEED ND
While LEED® for Neighborhood Development™ (LEED-ND) continues to hold greater name recognition, a lesser-known certification option of the National Green Building Standard (NGBS) is the Green Land Development certification. This green rating system covers the design, planning, and development of residential and mixed-use green communities. Since 2009, Home Innovation Research Labs has certified 22 land developments, representing over 1,500 lots, with nine communities currently in progress, representing 21,382 lots!
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Ed Hudson, MBA
April 10, 2014
The Pitfalls of Brand Share Studies of Construction Products
A successful year for your company may mean a couple percentage points gain in market share against your competitors. But how do you know your competitive position with any certainty? Are sudden changes in sales affecting only your company, or is the entire market or product category up or down for some reason? Since most companies' product category sales and production figures aren’t made public, companies often resort to conducting their own brand share study to answer these and other questions.
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Bob Hill, PE
April 7, 2014
It's Gettin' Hot in Here...
Guests who tour Home Innovation Research Labs are impressed with our sizeable Hot Box. Indeed, we have one of the largest in the country. Less brawny, but equally titillating, are our four heat flow meters. This equipment is essential to measure the thermal efficiency of insulation (and a variety of other building products), commonly measured by R-value, a measure of resistance to heat flow. And increasingly, as Professional Builder magazine recently noted, energy efficiency is table stakes for the new market.
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Chris Steuble
April 1, 2014
The End of Business as Usual
Today’s housing market presents builders and remodelers with lots of changes. More stringent energy codes. A shortage of skilled labor. Changing consumer preferences. Advanced building science technologies. Rising land and material costs. As a result, builders' and remodelers' practices are changing at a similar pace.
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