Robert Lord Builders Honored For Innovation By National Magazine

Robert Lord, president of St. Charles-based Robert Lord Builders, Inc., was recently named a 2007 Pacesetter Award winner in the innovation category by Custom Home magazine.

The accolade designates Lord as one of the custom home building industry’s top achievers in 2007. He received the award in front of industry peers on June 19 at the Four Seasons Aviara Resort in Carlsbad, Calif.

Lord is one of 17 Pacesetter Award winners who will be featured in Custom Home’s July/August 2007 issue, published by Hanley Wood. The winners represent a group of the nation’s outstanding custom home builders chosen because of their achievements in the industry.

“Through excellence in marketing, business management, design, production management, community service or innovation, the 17 custom builders receiving this year’s awards set the standard for performance in their industry,” said Leslie Ensor, editor of Custom Home magazine. “The Pacesetter winners are among the best in the business, and we’re proud to tell their stories to the 40,000 custom home professionals who read the magazine.” 

Lord earned the accolade for his green building innovations, as exemplified in a custom residence he is currently building at Red Oaks, a single-family home community in St. Charles. Lord’s inventory home is one of the most ambitious, state-of-the-art residences he has yet created, and is considered among the most environmentally friendly homes ever constructed in the Chicago area.

Green systems and products being incorporated into the home include: an underground geothermal heating and cooling system that provides a renewable fuel source to maximize energy efficiency by using the earth’s temperature—eliminating the need for natural gas-fueled heat; DuPont’s Tyvek ThermaWrap and AtticWrap, a completely reflective, low-E building envelope used throughout the house — which is a first in the nation — that manages radiant heat in the roof and walls, thus dramatically reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions; closed-cell foam insulation, a spray-applied polyurethane foam that surrounds the home’s building shell in a single blanket of air-tight insulation; low-E, ultra-efficient ClimaGuard windows by Hurd, installed throughout the home, that block 99.9 percent of ultraviolet rays; a hybrid septic system that uses an aerobic digester in tandem with a raised sand filter to cut the size of the septic field by half and save several trees in the process; whole house Energy Star certification; environmentally sensitive plumbing fixtures; green flooring materials and much more.

“The home at Red Oaks is being recognized for its forward-thinking, and it takes energy-efficient, green homebuilding to a whole new level,” said Lord. “We believe that people will be talking about this home years from now. They will say this residence is where green building began in Chicago. In fact, we were flattered when we discovered several members of one of the nation’s largest home building companies touring our job site.”

Lord added that he feels “truly blessed to have received this honor. From the beginning, our company has been about quality and high-efficiency. Earning the Pacesetter Award will set us further apart from most builders. You’ll find other builders who do things similar to us, but they won’t take it from A to Z like we did.”

Lord also participates in the Builder 20 Club—a national group comprised of similar type builders from non-competing markets who meet several times a year to share their wisdom, suggest ways to improve their operations, and increase their bottom lines. Builder 20 Club members exchange financial information, look for trouble spots, and offer each other advice on how to boost their profit ratios and performance.  He is also an active member of the St. Charles Rotary International organization.

Additionally, Lord is one of only a handful of Graduate Master Builders (GMB) in the state of Illinois. The national GMB designation, administered by the National Association of Home Builders, is the ultimate symbol of the building professional and is for experienced veterans only.

“We’re also one of only 104 current home builders in the state of Illinois that are recognized by the U.S. government as official Energy Star Partner builder,” Lord said. Homes that earn Energy Star certification must meet strict guidelines for energy efficiency set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and are at least 15 percent more energy efficient than homes built to the 2004 International Residential Code (IRC).

Lord said he is excited about the prospect of more builders going green, both locally and nationwide.

“This year will be remembered as the year of green building,” Lord said. “Being honored with Custom Home’s Pacesetter Award for innovation means we’re setting the benchmark for the state of Illinois and the nation.”