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Engineer Mary Alfred oversees Women Build volunteers as they work with Harold Black to wrap the exterior walls to minimize air getting in or out.

It’s 8:30 on a Saturday morning, and it’s 50-something degrees outside. The overcast sky and icy drizzle make it feel more like 40, but already the women are hard at work. Pounding, sawing, caulking, hacking…

A dozen or so of them, volunteers from Alachua County’s Habitat for Humanity Women Build program, are at this construction site to work on the organization’s first LEED-certified home in the county.

It’s situated on a small lot in the Douglass neighborhood, in the southeast corner of High Springs.  The women have been coming here every Saturday morning since the beginning of November. By now, the project is starting to look like a house.

On Dec. 18, a team of electricians joined the women despite the rain to start installing wiring. Usually, there’s only one man on-site — supervisor Larry Bagnall.

He estimates the house will be finished some time in April.

LEED stands for leadership in energy and environmental design. It was created by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a non-profit organization, as a certification system and guide for how to build efficiently and minimize environmental impact.

But building green can mean a variety of different things to different people.

Jennifer Langford is a professional architect and chair of the residential green building committee for the local USGBC chapter, and she’s assisting with the design and construction of this house.

What’s exceptional about the LEED program, compared to other certification systems, she explained, is that it’s comprehensive. The checklist used accounts for every aspect of a building project, from energy efficiency for utilities to environmental surroundings, to non-toxic building materials to location.

Little things, she pointed out, like whether a person can walk or use public transportation rather than drive to the grocery store, can make a house a little greener.

The way the LEED system works is that if a project falls short in one area it can still qualify by making up for it in another. If a home is built in a rural area where the residents will have to drive to go somewhere, by maxing out energy efficiency within the home, it can still pass the certification.

Mary Alfred, professional engineer and president of the local USGBC chapter, is serving as a qualified third party to oversee the High Springs Habitat for Humanity house and verify that it is built to LEED standards.

She pointed out some of the construction aspects that will contribute to energy efficiency and overall sustainability of the house. The air conditioning ducts are being installed through the ceiling within an insulated area.  In most homes the ducts are installed in the attic, which tends to be the hottest place in the house, making the cooling system work harder to get cold air down into the living space.

Another important factor in building this house, Alfred said, is size. One of the design challenges on the project was how to make to the most out of a small lot. By minimizing hallway space and maximizing square footage in each room, the interior will be more efficient when it comes to heating and cooling.

The windows presented another opportunity for making the house energy efficient, and they were tinted to reduce heating and cooling usage.

Shannette Rushing was one of the women working on the house. She can only come every other Saturday, she said, because she has to work. On Dec. 18 she was joined by her cousin, Harold Black, who volunteered to help build what is to be Rushing’s new house.

She and her three children, 9-year-old Jacquez, 5-year-old Alnarya and 1-year-old Alfabian, are excited to move into their new home.

Rushing hasn’t picked paint colors for the four bedrooms or two bathrooms yet, or the kitchen countertops or the roof — all things the homeowner has the opportunity to select themselves through the Habitat for Humanity program. But she will soon.

Alfred and Langford suggested a light-colored roof would be the best so it absorbs less light, thus keeping the house cooler under the hot Florida sun.

Though this is Alachua County’s first LEED Habitat house, other chapters of the program have started building only LEED-certified. Alfred said 60 percent of all LEED-certified homes are considered affordable housing.

Even if the homeowner spends a little more up front here and there, Langford explained, in the long term they save on everything from electric bills to maintenance and repairs.

“People think it costs more to build a green home, but it really doesn’t,” said Alfred.