LEED Gold home produced by Habitat for Humanity in North Philadelphia

A Philadelphia family has earned an energy efficient home with a lot of “sweat equity.” 

Corinne O’Connell says Habitat for Humanity’s 171st home in Philadelphia gets high marks from the Green Building Council’s LEED ratings. 

“We have learned quite a bit in LEED building process and the energy efficient and the green building process and we have integrated a lot of those systems into our homes that we have built in the last five years we have been building them to green standards but we made the extra effort in this one to hit gold.” 

O’Connell says the home will cost half as much to heat and cool as a standard Philadelphia rowhome.

She says the family will have a zero interest mortgage of about $550 a month making owning this home cheaper than renting.

“We will roll those dollars forward to help more Habitat families in the future so it’s really just a win win win for Habitat the families and the city,” she said.

O’Connell says lessons learned form this house will be applied to all future habitat projects, but they won’t necessarily be shooting for LEED Gold status.