Top 10 Lessons From Building a Net-Zero-Energy Home

9. Don’t beat up your trade partners

It’s important to remember that with the downturn in the housing market, many trades are suffering. When you ask them to change a building process, you need to remember that they are sometimes doing so with a significantly reduced staff, reduced capacity, and often at no additional cost. You can improve the chances of buy-in by showing a little love — perhaps even compensating them for the additional time required for the learning curve with the first few high-performance projects, while being clear with your intent for standard pricing moving forward. Always trying to get more for less may succeed in the short-term, but can backfire in the long-term.

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