Affordable green living has arrived in Goshen with the completion of a new superinsulated solar-heated rental duplex.

Featuring numerous energy saving components, such as solar heating panels, superinsulation, a tankless hot water heater and an air-to-air heat exchanger, the new duplex is the brainchild of father/son team Greg and Merrit Lehman. Their Goshen-based company, RGM Properties LLC, develops green rental properties in the area.

“The goal was really to incorporate as many green features into the building as we could while still being cost competitive in the rental market,” said Greg Lehman, who also designed the duplex through his company Lehman Design & Mfg LLC. “In the end, we wanted to build it so that someone who is of average income could take advantage of the benefits of a green building.”

Green for everyone

According to Lehman, green building has traditionally been labeled as a niche market accessible only to the very wealthy or the intrepid do-it-yourselfer. But with the completion of their new duplex at 745 Steury Ave., Goshen, Lehman said he is hoping to change all that.

“Most of the green buildings that I’ve seen in books and on the Web are either high-end custom homes or self-built personal homes,” Lehman said. “With this project, we hope to provide a low energy, low cost home for renters.”

Idea blossoms

Lehman said he first got the idea for developing green rental properties by watching his parents work on their own green home as a teenager.

“When I was in eighth grade my parents built a superinsulated home in Elkhart, and just seeing how that house was constructed and the way it performed was interesting, and that kind of got me started,” Lehman said. He added that it was a design class taken while a student at Goshen College in 2001 that really sealed the deal for him.

“After being introduced to ‘A Pattern Language’ by Christopher Alexander, it became my dream to build a house entirely from raw materials.”

Lehman completed his first green building in 2006, a cob and straw bale duplex, and moved on almost immediately to the Steury Avenue duplex, beginning construction in March of 2007.

“We completed the first unit in May of 2008, and we’re just about to finish with the second unit,” Lehman said. “We took a year and a half to build it, which is actually a little longer than it usually takes to build a duplex. But we did almost all the work ourselves.

“We hired out the electric, the plumbing and the trim. But we pretty much did everything else ourselves, which cut down on the cost significantly,” he said.

Construction costs more

Regarding cost, Lehman did admit that building green can bump up the cost of construction in some cases.

“I think some of the statistics I’ve seen show building green as costing about 5 percent more than a typical job due to the special materials and labor needed,” Lehman said. “The way we cut down on that was by doing most of the work ourselves, and by paying ourselves very little.”

Located on a small wooded lot on the east side of Goshen, Lehman describes the exterior of the three-story duplex as clad with rough sawn poplar siding and sporting a standing seam metal roof.

“The two units, each with three bedrooms and two baths, are fully equipped with all Energy Star appliances, compact fluorescent lights, and air-source heat pumps,” Lehman said. “Hard surface floors made of ceramic tile and wood also eliminate carpet and the dust mites associated with it. And water-based polyurethane, natural oil finish, and non-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint were used throughout the building.”

With winter settling in and record high heating costs expected in the coming months, Lehman said he is hoping his initial investment will pay off through the appeal of such a contemporary, yet energy-efficient home.

“One thing I’m hoping for, especially in an economy like we have now, is that because stylistically it’s very nice with all the added amenities, we’re hoping for very low vacancy rates,” Lehman said. “Plus, if we can show that it actually does provide better energy efficiency and performance, then maybe we can charge a bit more for rent, which adds up to a better return on investment.

“Right now it’s kind of a long-haul investment, so we probably won’t see much cash flow for quite a while,” he said.

Lehman said a typical green rental property such as this will most likely run about $800 a month, plus utilities. However, he added that due to the energy-saving components of the home, renters can expect to pay significantly less for utilities than they might through a traditional rental property.

“As far as heating goes, you have people in older homes of similar size who are paying between $300 and $400 a month in heating bills,” Lehman said. “We think ours will be quite a bit less than that. In fact, I’ll be disappointed if the average winter heating bill is over $50 a month.”

Taking into account the obvious cost saving options coupled with the other environmentally friendly aspects of green building, Lehman said he would not be surprised to see green building such as his rental property become the norm in the not too distant future.

“I think in the past its been kind of a fringe movement,. But I think there has just been so much talk in the last year regarding problems with the environment, global warming, etc., that I think we’re going to start seeing it everywhere,” Lehman said. “Plus, with the rising cost of things like electricity and natural gas, people are really starting to look at the cost of running their homes. So I think it’s here to stay.”