One eco-friendly choice for buyers is to live closer to work so they can walk or save on gas with a quick commute. For home buyers who work and want to live inside the Perimeter, especially those seeking new construction, town homes are often the choice.
Bryan Landry and Michael Talbot found a location with a quick commute, buying a three-story town home in Atlanta’s Bristol at Briarcliff. Builder Ashton Woods Homes used systems that adhere to the platinum performance standards of the Environments for Living program, which meets U.S. Department of Energy Building America specifications and helps save homeowners up to 45 percent annually on energy use.
Landry, 43, assistant dean for development and alumni relations at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, and Talbot, 26, an interior designer with Heery International who has the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) AP designation from the U.S. Green Building Council, chatted about their town home purchase in DeKalb County.
Q: Why was being energy-efficient important to you?
Talbot: It's something that I focus on in my career on an everyday basis that I wanted to incorporate in our home as well. Our home is not losing heat, and the air conditioning is not constantly clicking on. With the house being so well sealed, we keep it on 76 degrees and the temperature remains constant in the home.
Landry: It helps us prevent waste. There's no reason to waste energy that it would take to heat and cool [a home]. From a living environment, it enabled us to have a much more pleasant environment. It has a very consistent temperature ... instead of changing 15 degrees [during the day] in the heat of the summer. Not only are you doing good and being responsible and not wasting resources, but I think it enhances your lifestyle.
Q: How did you choose the location?
Landry: I didn't want to live more than three, four miles from work. Bristol was a perfect location in a neighborhood we knew and really liked. It was brand-new construction, which was very, very attractive to us.
Q: Was the town home already finished?
Talbot: We were able to choose our lot and build from the ground up.
Q: What types of choices were environmentally-friendly in the construction and interior design of the home?
Talbot: Every little detail, they really take that into account. The studs they used were made of a composite material from the scraps of other studs. It's three stories, but we only have one air-conditioning unit. There's a damper that distributes the air throughout the three different levels. We upgraded our wood floors to a really beautiful reclaimed wood to add some warmth. We used sea grass rugs, which are made of natural fiber.
Q: How did you see the builder make the home eco-friendly?
Landry: That was one of the things that was a differentiator. In terms of the way our home is insulated, in terms of the appliances and windows ... it is designed to be energy-efficient. We have not had an electricity bill in this house over $100.
Talbot: We have double-pane windows. They are great windows -- you can open them up from the inside and clean the outside of them. Before we moved in, they performed a special test to ensure the air tightness of the home. That was really a big selling point for me as well.
Q: What’s one of your favorite architectural features?
Talbot: We get really good natural light in this home. We are in a central unit, but we get so much daylight. It's beautiful. The front and back of the town home, it's all windows.
At a glance
Bryan Landry and Michael Talbot’s new town home in Atlanta’s Bristol at Briarcliff has two bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, a media room in the basement and about 2,100 square feet. They moved in during January 2011. Prices are in the $270,000s-$280,000s.
