John Bare
The Zero Home near Salt Lake City is one of the first production…
“It’s not necessarily modern,” says marketing director Rene Oehlerking. “It’s a simple interpretation of a lot of different styles.”
Home buyers of all ages have fallen in love with this less-is-more concept. “The design takes it from a buyer response like ‘We are interested in this home’ to ‘We’re going to do whatever it takes to buy this home,’” he says.
Key design elements of Garbett houses are open first floors and plentiful large windows. Other distinctive touches include a muted paint scheme with small bursts of color, trimless cabinets, brushed nickel hardware and lighting, quartz countertops, and stainless steel appliances.
Of course, not all buyers in this conservative region go for the streamlined look. The firm estimates only about 15 percent of the Salt Lake City market is interested in the style. “But 100 percent of that 15 percent want what we are offering and can’t get it anywhere else except in a high-priced custom home,” says John Tully, founding principal of KTGY, the project’s architectural firm. “It’s an ideal market segment for us.”
— Jennifer Goodman
“Those are 100 studs we don’t have to pay for,” says Oehlerking. “We don’t like to overframe because it’s nothing but a thermal bridge.”
The builder provides its framing subcontractors with detailed plans and requires them to cut to zero waste. “We told them we’d only pay for the amount of product we used,” he says. “It eliminated construction waste and saved a ton of money.”
LESSONS LEARNED
Garbett runs a tight ship on scheduling and was one of the first builders in the region to employ the non-market-driven evenflow system for construction management. “We say we’re going to build X amount of homes regardless of the market, and our subs know they can rely on that schedule,” Oehlerking says. “We leverage this predictable scheduling system to obtain better pricing and faster construction times.”
Now that the project is complete, the lesson learned from its construction is that an affordable net-zero home requires trade-offs and compromises to offset the expense of sustainable systems and products, Oehlerking notes. It’s a formula that the company has refined over the years, and energy-conscious buyers are taking notice. The Zero Home, which was listed for $649,900, is under contract to a Salt Lake City couple who was enticed by its high-tech features and ultra-low energy bills, says sales manager Dan Mooy.
“We have spent hours there just talking about the benefits of owning this high-performance home,” he says. “They have returned every few days to show family and friends, and just to hang out.”
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