Anything that will save our customers money without impacting the quality of home we build for them or their quality of life is a good thing. By that standard, building-in extra energy efficiency is a very good thing. It will save our homeowners remarkable amounts of money, starting right away and continuing every year they live in their SunSmart home. The best part is they don’t have to sacrifice comfort or convenience to get these savings. Quite the contrary. SunSmart homes are actually more comfortable to live in, a lot more, than conventional homes, and they deliver important health benefits also, because the indoor air quality they provide is so much higher than conventional homes.

Yes, I am conservative and careful, but so are the environmental scientists at the Florida Solar Energy Center. They are guiding us every step of the way in designing and building our SunSmart homes. Best of all, they individually test and certify every SunSmart home to meet the stringent performance standards of the U.S Department of Energy’s Builders Challenge program. No finer homes are being built anywhere around here, and we’re pretty proud to have been certified ourselves as a Builders Challenge Partner company.

If you believe that helping our country free itself from dependence on imported oil is important, you’ll know another reason why I am convinced building SunSmart homes is the right thing to do. Folks, the dream of building homes, which completely supply their own energy needs and have enough left over to charge the family’s electric-powered cars overnight, is not that much of a dream anymore. We’re almost there. If more builders like LifeStyle Homes would get involved and help bring costs down by creating bigger markets for energy efficient products and techniques, we could get to the energy-free home in America within 20 years, tops. Think what that could mean for America. If you can, you’ll have another reason why I think building SunSmart homes is the right thing to do.

Finally, I started out to become a high school chemistry teacher, and if I could have fed my family, I’d probably still be a high school chemistry teacher. As a scientist, of sorts, myself, the whole idea of having clean, renewable, abundant, affordable energy for my customers, my country, my planet and especially for my grandkids and their grandkids, just turns me on. How could I miss my opportunity to help this happen?