News 12 at 6 O'Clock

GROVETOWN -- The first power bill that Ray and Sylvia Jarest got in the mail raised questions.

"It came the next month, and (we thought) either they're making one big mistake or we're doing something right," said Ray.

For them -- the answer was good. A home that was twice the size of their old one, with a bill that remained about the same.

"Now that we have a baby, we're running more laundry, and I know I'm using less water and electricity," Sylvia said.

They pay about $100 per month in electricity to live in an Energy Star certified home. Such homes must be 15 percent more efficient. But the price of the home itself isn't that much more.

"It's actually just changing the process, changing the way you build your home," said Ivey Residential builder Matt Ivey. "It's not really costs that are added into the price of the home."

Ivey says an Energy Star home is about $1000-1500 more expensive. That's worth it to Kelly Woodward and her family, too.

"In our old house it was one story," she said. "We had horrible problems with some areas being really hot, some areas being really cold."

A bigger family meant a greater need for a bigger house.

"We have four kids, so we don't have a lot of extra money to put towards utilities," she added.

They didn't have to. And it's something many in Grovetown neighborhood Canterbury Farms are used to. 98 percent of the homes here are built to Energy Star standards.

There's a reason: more builders are flocking to the energy efficiency market.

"More and more people are starting to do it, because they realize the cost to build with the Energy Star program is not that high," Ivey adds.