Mark Johnson Custom Homes Blog

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.”