Mark Johnson Custom Homes Blog

Wilmington, NC home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes encourages anyone planning a wedding to attend the largest bridal event in coastal North Carolina, the Bridal Expo 2010, when it comes to Wilmington on Sunday, January 10th, from Noon-3 p.m. It is the 20th anniversary of the Expo and tons of prizes will be given away, including: a four-day, three-night honeymoon at the luxurious Jekyll Island Club on Jekyll Island, Georgia; a three-day two-night romantic Savannah getaway at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Savannah, Georgia’s historic district and more! Over 80 of the area’s finest bridal professionals will be on hand at the Schwartz Center at Cape Fear Community College, 411 N. Front Street. For more information, visit www.CarolinaWeddingGuide.com or call 910-259-8323.

Pender County, NC custom home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes would like to share an article by USAToday’s Green House journalist Wendy Koch that was published today. Koch reported that researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia are tweaking tobacco plant genes to increase their oil production and hopefully use them as biofuel. Below is an excerpt and to read the complete article, click here!

“’Tobacco is very attractive as a biofuel because the idea is to use plants that aren’t used in food production, said study co-author Vyacheslav Andrianov, assistant professor of cancer biology at Jefferson Medical College. He added:

‘We have found ways to genetically engineer the plants so that their leaves express more oil. In some instances, the modified plants produced 20-fold more oil in the leaves…

Based on these data, tobacco represents an attractive and promising ‘energy plant’ platform, and could also serve as a model for the utilization of other high-biomass plants for biofuel production.’

The preliminary research has been published online in Plant Biotechnology Journal.

Tobacco, in the form of cigarette butts, is also being studied as a way to better insulate homes.

The London Evening Standard recently reported that the London borough of Harrow is studying innovative technology to recycle the butts into rolls of home insulation. Currently, the butts, about 4,000 of which are dropped in the town center every day, end up in landfills.”

Brunswick County, NC new home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes would like to share an exciting article by Amy Hotz of the Wilmington Star-News. With the growth of local ecotourism, several Brunswick County town officials are considering creating new paddling and biking trails. Below is an excerpt and to read Hotz’s complete article, click here!

“In North Carolina, a 2006 survey by the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation found that 3.4 million of the state’s residents and nonresidents, 16 years and older fished, hunted or watched wildlife in North Carolina.

Of the total number of participants, 1.3 million fished, 304,000 hunted and 2.6 million participated in wildlife-watching activities, which include observing, feeding and photographing wildlife.

All that adds up to money.

That same survey also indicated that 87.5 million Americans spent more than $122 billion in 2006 on wildlife-related recreation.”

Photo courtesy of: Sarracenia.com

St. James Plantation, NC home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes would like to share an article posted today by RealtyTimes.com’s Kenneth Harney. Harney shared some positive outlook for the 2010 housing market, including a rise of home sales and new home starts. Below is an excerpt and to read the complete article, click here!

“The latest pricing numbers released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency found home values nationwide up modestly in the latest month — by six tenths of a percent. That sounds really small, but annualized it comes to more than seven percent, which is not bad at all.

And recent sales results from key local markets also are encouraging. For example, in November, every major metropolitan area in Florida saw sales of houses and condos up compared with the year before for the second straight month.

Overall, according to the Florida Association of Realtors, sales of houses were 61 percent higher than November of 2008. Condo sales were up by an amazing 111 percent!!

Plus consumer confidence has been trending upward nationally, by 7.5 percent during December, according to the University of Michigan’s bellwether survey.”

New Hanover County, NC Green home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes’ LEED Platinum rated home was featured on EcoHomeMagazine.com last month. Jennifer Goodman highlighted our first venture into building with Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF’s) and how it led to the highest Green rating for a home by the U.S. Green Building Council. Below is an excerpt from Goodman’s report and to read the complete article, click here!

“Last September, builder Mark Johnson was looking for an innovative way to generate customer interest for a spec home he was planning in Wilmington, N.C.

Nine months later—after a crash course in high-performance building techniques—Johnson not only had produced an innovative home, but an award-winning LEED-H Platinum dwelling constructed with insulated concrete forms (ICFs) that will save $2,200 on utility bills and more than 100,000 gallons of water a year.

‘We weren’t initially planning to build a green home,’ says his brother, Kevin Johnson, director of business development for Mark Johnson Custom Homes. ‘But we knew it needed to be something a bit different, because the market was starting to slide.’

The brothers’ leap into green building began at a concrete symposium in Charlotte, N.C., where they learned of the environmental and storm-resistant benefits of concrete-built homes. They felt that building with ICFs, which boast a wind rating of up to 250 mph, would be just the thing to get buyers in their coastal city to take notice.”