Starting over solar

COSTA MESA — When Bill Switzenberg finishes work on his new house, he expects it to look like no other residence for miles around.

He doesn’t believe, however, that it will be unique for long.

The Eastside resident is among a handful of people statewide who have joined Build It Green, a nonprofit program that encourages people to construct homes with solar panels, instant water heaters and other environmentally friendly materials. As far as Switzenberg is concerned, projects like Build It Green are the way the industry will soon be going.

“I would love to live in a house that renewed its own electrical energy, used less gas and used less water,” he said last week, shortly before crews began tearing down the house where Switzenberg lived with his family for 32 years. “Wouldn’t everyone love to do that? But it’s also a good niche for the market.”

Switzenberg said his new home, to be built on the same foundation as the old one, should take around six months to build. As soon as it’s completed, he plans to put it up for sale.

Build It Green, which launched in Berkeley in 2005, rates homes on a number of building practices, including plumbing, heating, power sources and materials used for framing and landscaping. If a house scores highly enough on the organization’s checklist, the owner receives a certificate to display in the window. The program offers no rebates for builders or home buyers, but Dadla Ponizil, the independent consultant working with Switzenberg on the project, said money wasn’t always an issue for people concerned about the ecology.

“This is doing the right thing, pretty much,” he said. “The hope is, as more people use this program, it will provide the home buyer with a credible seal of approval that they can trust, that has been authenticated.”

The plans for Switzenberg’s house include solar panels on the roof, insulation that uses denim rather than fiberglass and valves that conserve water by heating it instantly. The only appliances that would operate on gas, he said, were the stove and drier.

Switzenberg has yet to submit his official application for Build It Green, but when he does, it will be the first one in Newport-Mesa, according to program manager Tenaya Asan. She said her office had gotten an increasing number of applications in the last few months.

“We are finding that they generally have a bigger resale value for the builder,” Asan said. “The market is a pretty slow market, but they’re finding that homes that are green are selling faster than ones that are not.”

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at [email protected].