Meet Taylor Bennett – Summer 2019 Shine On Champion
- Alex Taylor
- Emil de Jong
- July 6, 2019
- Building Science, SEM News
We are happy to introduce our second Shine On Champion, Taylor Bennett! Taylor is a Construction Manager with Evans Coghill Homes who exemplifies strong building knowledge and believes in the science behind, and value of the services we provide.
First of all congratulations Taylor– we are happy to announce that your hard work has earned you the honor of being named the SEM 2019 Summer Shine On Champion. Each season our team members nominate partners we work with who share a passion for improving the way people make and use energy and exemplify many of the core values that SEM stands for. One lucky winner is chosen from the entries, inducted into our Shine On Champion Hall of Fame, and awarded our Cash Cooler prize.
Why We Chose Taylor
Evans Coghill is signed up for our HERS rating service. This service has no hard requirements, but simply ensures a certified professional is able to grade aspects of the home, collect mechanical data, and run several building performance tests. Taylor understands the value in achieving good scores and consistently goes above and beyond to ensure his homes reach this. As energy raters, this gives us even more assurance that he believes in not just in what we do, but why we do it. Taylor is truly passionate about home performance and he gives off a powerful sense of pride through his work. The result is consistently high performing homes with blower door numbers in the TWO’s! Taylor’s homes are always 100% ready when we arrive on site and he will do everything he can in order to achieve the lowest possible HERS score.
Seek Solutions
When I first met Taylor, I was immediately struck by his firsthand knowledge of building science. He was already familiar with most of the subtle details that go into building a high-performance home, as well as what goes above and beyond the typical standard building code. With this prior knowledge and expertise, he has been able to consistently understand and prevent building failures.
"Have To" Shifts to "Get To"
Taylor is a project manager with Evans Coghill. With a busy production schedule, the ability to move quickly and adapt to challenges is a must. This environment can also take a toll on an individual once delays and issues occur. However, Taylor is always responsive when it comes to correcting items that have been missed in the field. He makes sure that the home looks move-in ready by the time we come in for our final inspection, and even lends a hand to help out during testing, all with a very pleasant attitude.
Invest in the Greater Good
Taylor believes that building high-performance homes is not just best building practice or a value add to the homeowner, but has a larger purpose of advancing the construction industry. His bottom line belief is that implementing proven building science techniques and the associated energy efficiency practices are vital to the future of homes. This commitment, and the fact that Taylor is an NAHB Certified Green Professional, made him an easy nomination for this award.
Never Settle
Another one of Taylor’s goals is to achieve HERS scores that always score under 60. Due largely in part to his hard work, every one of his homes has met this target. Taylor continually demonstrates his resilience by setting a personal goal of achieving blower door scores of under 3.0 air changes per hour. Taylor has been able to achieve this goal on every house with one home testing in at 1.9ACH50!
Enjoy the Journey
Taylor is a hard worker who builds homes with character and craftsmanship. From the ground up, Taylor has a lot of pride in his work. We at SEM recognize that Taylor is not just succeeding in his work, but cruising along while doing so. He is always upbeat and positive which radiates to all those that he meets.
The Prize
What’s in it for the Shine On Champ? It’s really a win-win-win situation. By building high-quality homes optimized for performance, the builder has another tool in their belt when differentiating themselves in a hot market. At the same time, homeowners receive more value and can be confident in the quality they were sold on because their home was third-party inspected by an independent verifier. And finally, everyone wins with less energy consumption, more efficiency, and actual savings that can be spent on other things beyond utility bills and home maintenance.
But we realize this might not be the most exciting prize to carry home at the end of the day (although we’d beg to differ), so we’ve put together a more tangible award for the Champs that make this all happen. Our Yeti cooler full of cash is just a small way of saying thanks to our Shine On Champs for going above and beyond so we can make sure our partners are (properly) insulating their homes and their value.
Way to go Taylor and keep up the great work! Be on the lookout for our next nomination this fall. You might be Southern Energy Management’s next Shine On Champion and the lucky winner of the next Yeti #cashcooler.
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