Featured Homes
Triple Threat
The first-ever KC Health Home brings green building, energy efficiency and indoor air quality to the forefront of homebuilding.

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Not only does this pool look great, it’s healthier for users because it’s a saltwater pool. “I have daughters with sensitive skin and concerns about hair damage,” Frank says. The vinyl-lined pool is crossed between gunite, which can crack, and has steel-reinforced walls with brackets embedded in concrete. Concrete around the pool is sprayed with a product called Cool Deck that keeps the ground from burning feet. Swimmers can relax on the lanai, which is covered by a pre-finished pine tongue-and-groove vaulted ceiling and outfitted with a bathroom and outdoor bar made of Spanish cedar.
The Tour
The KC Health Home, built by H&S Covenant Homes, is
beautifully decorated in Tuscan style on a heavily treed, two-acre lot in one of the most rapidly developing areas of town. The house is located at 10815 W. 153rd Terrace in The Woods at Colton Lake. Visitors are welcome during the Home Builders Association of Greater Kansas City’s Spring Homes Tour, May 4-18. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., daily.

Tour-goers will notice a sticker system on the walls throughout the house that explains defining features of the KC Health Home. Many of the benefits are hidden behind the walls. The stickers will help visitors see that a green, energy-efficient and healthy home doesn’t have to look any different than one that’s not.
The Charity

KC Health Home is teamed up with the Fox 4 Love Fund for Children, a local organization dedicated to the welfare and betterment of Kansas City’s children. The 25-year-old nonprofit has raised more than $2.5 million since its inception to support 20,000 Kansas City kids in need of anything from clothes to dental work. The Love Fund is special because it offers help when kids can’t find it anywhere else. “The FOX 4 Love Fund elevates public awareness for funds, goods and services for children in need, ages 18 and under, when there’s an inability to receive funding from other resources,” says Joyce Eacock, the Love Fund’s director of special events. “We’re often the last resort for agencies trying to meet various needs of children.”

Because of their commitment to this campaign, volunteers organize a number of fundraising events throughout the year, including staffing the KC Health Home during the tour.

The Love Fund’s mission is crucial in these modern times of budget-cutting. Without fundraising, many kids would be denied help. If you would like to donate time or money, visit www.lovefundforchildren.org or contribute cash or checks during your visit.

Visit these links for more information:

www.kchealthhome.com
www.healthhouse.org
www.lungusa.org
As parents of four, Frank and Kathy Pikus want the most comfortable, healthy environment for their kids. When their son was diagnosed with asthma six years ago, Frank and Kathy looked into ways to reduce their son’s attacks at home by regulating the indoor air quality. According to the American Lung Association (ALA), people spend 65 percent of their time at home, yet the air inside could be two to five times more pollutant than it is outside. Fortunately, Frank, a local developer and president of H&S Covenant Homes, had the power to advance the industry and buck the
statistic with an unprecedented approach. “I knew there had to be a way to build a better house,” he says.

Frank spent nearly a year researching new techniques and adopted the values instituted by the ALA, whose Health House program is designed to implement environmentally friendly materials and reduce energy consumption to improve indoor air quality. Each of these components contributes to an overall improved product through two methods. Selecting green products without toxic chemicals like formaldehyde (an organic pollutant) and tightening a home’s envelope to stop moisture from seeping in and allowing mold growth (a biological pollutant) prevent the exacerbation of allergy symptoms and other lung ailments in susceptible people.

With a better understanding and newfound knowledge, H&S Covenant Homes created the KC Health Home, the first of its kind in this region and one of only a handful in the country. Though the Pikus family will eventually occupy the house, Frank thought it extremely important to spread the word about the possibility of living in a home that is healthy for people and the planet.

“Once you know this kind of information, you can’t un-know it,” says John Menghini, vice president of sales and marketing. “Now we want everyone else to understand the benefits of building this way.”

So, what are the benefits?
They are manifold. The KC Health Home is one of the most energy-efficient homes in the country, with a Home Energy Rater (HERS) index of 55. This translates to a home that is 45 percent more energy-efficient than other newly constructed homes. Because the home is tightly sealed, not only does it keep out contaminants, it keeps in energy and saves money. A Health House can cost up to 10 percent more to build than a traditional home, but, Frank notes, homeowners will pay 50 to 60 percent less per month in utility bills and should recoup the cost in about five to seven years. Plus, homes built to this standard can qualify for energy-efficient mortgage programs as well as federal tax credits.

Part of the reason the KC Health Home is so efficient is because of the insulated concrete forms (ICFs) that make up the walls, though a Health House in general can still be effective with traditional wood construction. Concrete poured in between Styrofoam forms results in an 11-inch-thick wall, creating a veritable fortress that can withstand a direct hit from a F4 tornado. “The whole house is a storm shelter,” Frank points out. “During construction, the fire department stopped by when they found out about the home because they’d never seen anything like it.”

That kind of durability means a long life expectancy for the home. Supporting products like BluWood, lumber treated to be mold-, rot- and termite-resistant, was used for all interior framing and aids in fighting the most common threats to a structure’s stability.

Just as important in creating a healthy home are the products used on the inside. For instance, Frank ordered pre-engineered hardwood floors with a factory-baked polyurethane coating to keep dust and off-gases out of the house. The wide-plank, hand-scraped hickory looks gorgeous and has a harder, more durable finish because it was created in a controlled environment.