Green Building and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Experience

Through the years Hayes Construction has stayed on the cutting edge of Green Building technology.  We built one of the first LEED certified residential projects in Tucson; a beautifully remodeled home on the greens of Tucson National Golf Course. We also completed a Pima County certified Green home (Both shown Here). Our experience with green construction is rooted much deeper though.

Tom and Sue Hayes, Owners, were thinking green long before eco-friendly building was cool. They attempted to use grey water recycling in their home but were turned down by Pima County’s building department. Now, Pima County is encouraging and in some cases requiring new homes to build-in grey water recycling systems. That was only the start of their green mentality as they incorporated many reclaimed products into the construction to reduce the amount of waste that went to the landfill. Before they had even broken ground on the project they had planted saplings to take advantage of summer shading by the trees. This mentality of thinking green is not something that can just be picked up because it is a trend. It is only learned through many years of living those values.

Sue not only helped green her home but also was an essential member in the evolution of Tucson Clean and Beautiful. She helped develop the Trees for Tucson entity and dreamed big hoping to plant 500,000 trees. Although they haven’t met that goal yet they are exceeding expectations and have planted over 60,000 trees to date. She also created the annual Big Green Event in Marana with the help of her Green Committee in the Marana Chamber of Commerce. This event drew over 60 local business that share a passion for something green.

Tom takes the knowledge that he learns on certified green projects and incorporates it into the other projects we build every year.  When we build to a more strict standard than the code requires that methodology sticks with us. We can’t go back to the old way of doing things and say that it’s good enough. We strive to add green features to every home we build be it from advanced framing to special insulation techniques. Most of the time these green features can be accomplished at the same cost or sometimes even cheaper than conventional building practices.

Andrew has been dedicating his time to increase the knowledge of Green building practices throughout our community. He is currently siting as the chair of the Southern Arizona Home Builder Association’s Green Build Council where the main goal is education on the newest and most innovative ways to build green. He has also spoken in front of several groups including the US Green Build Council (USGBC), Sustainable Tucson, and the International Association of Assessing Officers (AZ). The underlying decision for Andrew to focus on education is to show our community the benefits of going green.

As you can can see the team at Hayes Construction is dedicated to being environmentally conscientious.