Terry and Dawn Dingwell and their two daughters Emily (age 14) and Alaina (age 12) have recently moved into a beautiful new Donald Gardner-designed home plan, the Derbyville, which is situated on a pristine patch of pasture surrounded by woods in an equestrian-themed community in Upstate South Carolina. A job change for Terry led the family south from Ohio. Because they have horses (both daughters are enthusiastic equestrians) and it can be difficult to find available properties to accommodate horses, they decided to build new rather than buy an existing home. They also were very interested in having a well-designed, quality house that would incorporate all the features they needed to enhance their lifestyle.
Once they made the decision to build, they began searching home plan magazines and websites and found the Donald Gardner website. “I used the search box to select how many bedrooms, how many baths, the size of the garage and so on and started looking through the plans that came back,” said Dawn. “This plan jumped out immediately to me because I really liked the look of the exterior and thought it would be right at home on the lot.”
Terry added, “It met all our requirements and encompassed the right amount of space for what we were looking for. We wanted a home that was ‘big enough’ but not overly large. We didn’t want to have any wasted space.”
“This plan is great for us because it doesn’t have any ‘museum rooms,’ as I call them,” said Dawn. “We use our formal dining room. That is where we have meals as a family.
Our previous home had rooms that we just didn’t use, a formal parlor and so on. You heat and cool them and furnish them, but don’t live in them. We didn’t think there was any point in building wasted space. When it costs so many dollars per square foot to build, you want to get your money’s worth.”
Once they had the plan selection finalized, they began researching local builders. An internet search brought them to Todd Usher and Addison Homes, a builder located in Greenville, SC. “We phoned Todd and talked to him about what we wanted to do, and he invited us to see a model home he built in Greenville. We were impressed with the quality of the home and liked his personality and the fact that he answered all our questions for us, so we decided to move forward,” Dawn said.
It also happens that Addison Homes was the Southeast Regional Builder of the year in 2007 for Earthcraft House, which is a regional building guideline for creating more energy-efficient homes that are sensitive to the environment. Though the Dingwell’s didn’t select or seek out Addison Homes based on a motivation to build “green,” once Todd showed them the benefits of building energy efficiency into the home, they saw the logic of incorporating those elements.
“It’s really the quality of the home we toured that led us to choose Todd,” Terry said. “After living for many years in an old home that was not energy-efficient, and where I would have to invent solutions to fix problems on a regular basis, I was really adamant about wanting a home that was quality built from the start. If it’s not done right at the beginning you spend years chasing problems and trying to rectify them.”
“Also, after paying around $350 per month on the level installment plan for our electricity – and this was in a house with no air conditioning, mind you – Todd’s estimate of $125-per-month average utility bills in our new house got my attention,” said Dawn. “While we loved the character of the old house, it sure was a nightmare to heat in the winter. Terry used to have to pile straw bales around the crawlspace to help keep the pipes from freezing.”
Todd showed them how they could make a few changes and upgrades to the plan and end up with a much more energy-efficient and environmentally sound product without spending a lot of money.
“Dawn and Terry didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars investing in solar power or out of the ordinary green things. What we did with this home is what anyone could reasonably expect to achieve on a normal construction budget, yet still yields results that are much greener than standard construction,” Todd said. “We upgraded things such as the heating and cooling system, insulation, and window quality and coupled that with our usual building practice of sealing the house up tight, making sure we can control the air quality, things of that nature. The final Energy Star score was 72, which represents a 28 percent improvement of energy efficiency above a home built to the current national energy code. So this home came in well under the Energy Star minimum, and will represent a significant savings in energy costs over time for the Dingwells. Along with the fact that it adds quality of life and comfort to the home.”
(Editor’s note: To receive Energy Star certification, a home must achieve an Energy Star rating of 85 or lower. Learn more at www.energystar.gov).
Other things that the Dingwells incorporated were choices made for aesthetic reasons that ended up having green benefits as well.
“Since we’re out in the country we wanted to make the house fit the surroundings. We picked our color scheme with that in mind, and also decided to add accents like a flagstone sidewalk instead of concrete, and we have a gravel driveway,” said Dawn. “You don’t see those things in subdivisions.”
“The benefit of the flagstone and gravel is that they are both pervious materials that let water drain through,” said Todd. “It’s actually a very sound green building practice, but Dawn and Terry didn’t arrive at it by trying to be green. It was just an added bonus.”
Though it was their first experience building a home, Dawn and Terry felt the process was very smooth overall, with only a few minor glitches. They had already moved to South Carolina before construction began, renting a home until this one was completed. Dawn visited the homesite nearly every day to monitor progress of the build. Now that the home is complete and they have been living in it for several weeks they have only found one thing they wish they had done differently.
“The light switch for the walk-in closet in the master bedroom is outside the closet, and I wish we had put it inside the closet,” said Dawn. “I always get all the way in there before I realize I want the light on, then have to come back out to switch it on. That’s a pretty minor complaint, though,” she laughed.
“We are really happy with how the house turned out,” said Terry. “Every day we look at each other and say, ‘oh, we just love it here.’ We feel very fortunate to have found such a perfect location and we are enjoying the house so much.”
“The other day we finally got all the boxes unpacked that were in the garage and were able to park both cars in the garage – that was a real treat,” added Dawn. “We’re very happy here, and we built the home to be a place where we can live comfortably for a long time.