Bensonwood's OBPlusWall™ Awarded Top-10 Product for 2010 by BuildingGreen
Announcement at GreenBuild Chicago Recognizes Industry Leading Design, Energy-Efficiency and Open-Built® Process
CHICAGO, IL, November 18, 2010 – Bensonwood's innovative OBPlusWall™ has been selected as one of BuildingGreen's Top-10 products of the year by the editors of Environmental Building News and GreenSpec®. This ninth annual award, announced at the 2010 Greenbuild conference in Chicago, recognizes the most innovative and exciting green building products added to the GreenSpec® Directory during the past year or covered in Environmental Building News.
"Our selections of the Top-10 Green Building Products represent a wide range of product types in many different application areas," noted BuildingGreen founder and GreenSpec executive editor Alex Wilson. "Many of our Top-10 products this year have multiple environmental attributes," said Wilson.
Bensonwood's OBPlusWall™ is now standard on all the company's new offerings where enhanced performance is indicated. Increased from a previous Bensonwood standard of R-26, the new OBPlusWall™ is R-35 rated, with advanced gaskets, fastening and other elements that create a tighter thermal envelope. In recognizing this industry-leading design that creates superior energy-efficiency, drastically reducing heating and cooling costs, BuildingGreen also noted Bensonwood's Open-Built® system that disentangles the layers of the home. (Video of the OBPlusWall™).
"We appreciate the recognition by BuildingGreen of our OBPlusWall™ as a Top 10 product and see it as further evidence that the design and building innovations we are advancing at Bensonwood are creating a higher standard for the industry," said Tedd Benson, Founder of Bensonwood. "The more prospective homebuyers become familiar with our off-site fabrication process, Open-Built® design, and 3B Matrix based series of customizable homes, the more they begin to realize that higher quality, adaptable and sustainable homes are within their reach."
In addition to the OBPlusWall™, Bensonwood is continuing to roll out innovative and customizable home plans. In November it unveiled the modern Alliance™ Series and the company continues to expand offerings within its Lifestyle, and Unity Series. Fifteen of these homes are pre-designed for maximum value, and 10 plans within the Lifestyle and Unity series are net-zero capable.
BuildingGreen's Top-10 product selections, as in previous years, are drawn primarily from new additions to the company's GreenSpec Product Directory. Over 170 products have been added to the GreenSpec database during the past year. The GreenSpec database includes more than 2,200 product listings, representing several times as many actual products.
A big driver in the development of green products continues to be the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED® Rating System (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), which awards points for the use of certain product types or for the energy or water savings that certain green products can achieve.
GreenSpec is the leading national directory of green building products. Products are selected based on criteria developed over the past 18 years. Manufacturers do not pay to be listed in GreenSpec, and neither GreenSpec nor Environmental Building News carry advertising; both are supported by users of the information. "Our policy of not accepting money from product manufacturers allows us to be objective in our review of products," said Wilson. The GreenSpec product database is also available online as part of the BuildingGreen Suite. For information on BuildingGreen resources, visit www.BuildingGreen.com or call 800-861-0954.
About Bensonwood: For more than 30 years, Bensonwood has delivered uncompromising quality and innovation in timber frame, hybrid and high-performance building. Through its unique Open-Built® system, Bensonwood incorporates advanced technologies and environmentally responsible practices in all its buildings including three lines of customizable, net-zero capable homes: The Lifestyle Greenfield and Fairview Series and the Unity Collection. Bensonwood was also featured recently in 16 episodes of PBS's "This Old House," designing and building a high performance, eco-friendly home in Weston, MA. Winner of PATH's 2006 Innovative Small Builder of the Year award, Residential Contractor magazine's "2008 Builder of the Year," and winner of BuildingGreen's Top 10 products in 2010 for its OBPlusWall™, Bensonwood is a nationally recognized designer/builder of residential and commercial structures. For more information: www.bensonwood.com.
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