Mark Johnson Custom Homes Blog

Landfall custom home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes’ LEED Platinum home was featured in the Greater Wilmington Business Journal on Friday, August 21, 2009. Reporter Alison Lee Satake interviewed the Vice President of Business Development, Kevin Johnson, exploring further into the LEED certification process and how Mark Johnson Custom Homes approached the undertaking, which resulted in the highest LEED certification available. Below is an excerpt and to read the complete article on the Wilmington, NC home, click here.

“LEED had never before considered a system like TED into its rating. ‘We had to make the case to the US Green Building Council that it’s giving people real-time feedback that we can associate with dollars that’s going to elicit the behavioral changes we need,’ Johnson said. ‘The behavior change needed is for someone to turn the light switch off. What’s going to prompt them to do that is seeing their energy bill go down each time they do this,’ he said.”

Wilmington, NC Green home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes, Inc is excited to share some exciting “Green” news that is happening at our local university! North Carolina’s first “Green” Oyster Hatchery Research Facility is being built at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

The project began in 2006 when the North Carolina Aquarium Division approached the well-known “Green” architect, Frank Harmon, FAIA, to work with the state’s new Oyster Hatchery Program. With Harmon, the program aimed to construct three eco-friendly oyster hatchery facilities along the North Carolina coast. Together they aim to help boost the state’s oyster population and, as a result, improve the quality of our coastal waters.

Since the early 1900s, the oyster population in North Carolina has declined by an estimated 90 percent. Habitat loss, decline of water quality, diseases and over harvesting have all contributed to this dramatic decline. Because one adult oyster can filter sediment and pollutants out of 15-50 gallons of water per day, the water quality in coastal North Carolina has also suffered.

The state’s three future oyster hatchery facilities would produce billions of eyed larvae to help reestablish the state’s oyster population. They would also educate the public on the oyster’s value to the quality of coastal waters.

The 12,000-square-foot Oyster Hatchery Research Facility being built on the Coastal Marine Sciences campus at UNC-Wilmington is the first phase of implementing the study, and is now part of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries.

In accord with the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ policy requiring sustainable and green building practices wherever feasible for state-owned buildings, the Oyster Hatchery Research facility will preserve trees and topography and retain 100 percent of stormwater on site to be used to clean the interior of the facility. Harmon also designed the building to allow fresh air ventilation during good weather to eliminate the need for HVAC during spring and fall. Primary construction materials are steel and brick, the latter required on the predominately brick UNC-Wilmington campus. Recycled materials are used wherever possible.

Construction should be completed by May of 2010.

For more information on North Carolina’s first “Green” Oyster Hatchery Program, click here. 

Courtesy of: Kim Weiss, Blueplate PR http://www.blueplatepr.com/

Photo Courtesy of: Frank Harmon, FAIA

 Brunswick County, NC custom home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes, Inc encourages those in the area to take advantage of all that Ocean Isle Beach has to offer!

In honor of the 29th Annual North Carolina Oyster Festival, the Brunswick County Chamber of Commerce is offering free shag lessons to prepare for the celebration!  Shag lessons will take place every Thursday from September 10^th–October 8^th from 7-8pm at The Winds in Ocean Isle Beach.  Classes are taught by Jim Sterner and Donna Rosen of DanceLinkUSA.  Participants must RSVP to Megan Masser prior to the lessons at 910-754-6644 extension 108. 

The 29th Annual North Carolina Oyster Festival will be held in front of the Museum of Coastal Carolina at Ocean Isle Beach on October 17th and 18th.  The festival will be from 9am-6pm on Saturday and 9am-5pm on Sunday.  Tickets are $5.00 per person and children 8 and under are admitted free of charge.   

The weekend will feature 120 arts and crafts vendors, food vendors, entertainment, oyster shucking contest, oyster stew cook-off, children’s activities, shag competition and a road race! 

No outside food or drink or pets are allowed; shirts and shoes are required. For more information visit the website or call 910-754-6644. 

Electronic House Magazine will be featuring St. James, NC home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes’ LEED Platinum home in its October 2009 issue. The issue will showcase in particular The Energy Detective, the energy monitoring system used in the home. System design and insulation was done by Wilmington, NC’s premier low voltage audio/video/lighting integration company, Electronics2You. The issue will hit newsstands next month, but for a sneak preview of the article, click here.

In a time where 20 million Americans are on Twitter, over 55 million have Facebook accounts, and 35 million are on LinkedIn, it’s easy to see how social media is changing the way we live. Companies utilize social media as an effective marketing tool, individuals use it as a way to keep in touch with loved ones and it is an excellent networking device. But when your personal life becomes public, caution should be taken with what and how much information you post on the internet.

Status updates on Facebook and Tweets on Twitter are a quick and easy way to post information, such as a website link or a YouTube video. But what is most common are the answers to “What’s on your mind”, which is on your personal Facebook home page, or “What are you doing”, which is on Twitter. Publicizing where you are or where you plan to be has had some dangerous results as the popularity of social media has grown.

Some homeowners have found the consequences for making their lives more public via social media have been rather devastating. After Tweeting that he was going to be out of town, a Mesa, Arizona man came home to find his home had been burglarized. Thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment was stolen and because so many people had access to this information on the internet, finding the culprit is nearly impossible.

Jacksonville, NC home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes, Inc urges you to be wary of what information you choose to post. When leaving your home for an extended period of time, opt to wait until after a trip to say where you went and what exciting things you did.

Courtesy of Dan York, www.disruptiveconversations.com

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