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| <back | home Conservation Building Accessible Green for Everyone by William Ostrander For many people, green building seems sincere — just not practical or economical. I am a general contractor, and most of my clients agree with the idea of green building but believe it’s meant for other people who can afford to build a new home or building. My projects are mostly remodels, and usually we don’t have the option of straw bale walls and solar roofs or technologies that can be implemented cost efficiently in just part of the house. But at the same time, I’m sickened by the dumpsters that cart away 20 tons of waste from the average house remodel and the toxic smells that escape from various finish materials, and the sheer size of the houses that people feel they need to be comfortable in nowadays. Adding to my personal experience, I’ve learned that the Cold Canyon Landfill in San Luis Obispo took in 270,000 tons of waste in 2005 alone, that for the first time last year the consumption of raw materials was greater than the world’s ability to replenish those materials, and since I was a kid, the average size of a house has increased over 50% to 2412 square feet, even while the average family size has decreased by 15%. Is this necessary? These facts and feelings are what influenced my 10,500-square-foot commercial remodeling project in downtown Paso Robles. Here is what I did. I call it conservation building. My wife and I bought an old metal building that many people knew as the Bekins Building. Most people saw a building that should have been torn down and replaced. I had an instinct and economic incentive to use what was there. This may be one of the most overlooked aspects of applying conservation to your building project. So many people buy a house for what they can make it into instead of what it is. Buy it, gut it and rebuild it with new sensibilities. The problem with this is that people are only staying in their houses for three years on average today and house interiors are being ripped out and changed like trendy clothes. Conservation building starts in design with big stroke issues like energy consumption, green materials and recycling, but there are a thousand subtle choices that also impact our environment. When we started, we knew we didn’t want a generic building that required aggressive signage and energy consumptive lighting to distract people’s attention as they drove by, as visual pollution is rationalized in the commercial world. So we set out to build a pretty picture that people would choose to notice. To do that we made the windows the color focal point — after all, the tenants need to be seen to do business. Then, we made detailed features out of little things like custom handrails and curved downspouts that people noticed and lingered on. I can’t tell you the number of people who’ve complimented me on those stainless steel handrails made by Matt Canaday. And not least, we spent extra money on landscaping to create a more balanced environment that reduces glare and heat gain and contributes to good air quality. The result is a building that people remember without an address and a Chamber of Commerce Beautification Award. I’m not really a metal building fan because they don’t patina or age well, but it’s hard to argue with their cost efficiency or, maybe more importantly in this society of built-in obsolescence, they are nearly 100 % recyclable. (Someday, manufacturers may be required to certify that their products will be repatriated and/or recyclable.) The metal frame and concrete slab of our structure were still basically sound. We tore off the dented and rusty skin and recycled every scrap of metal on the property (or gave it away to someone with a “project”) at Heilman’s Salvage in Atascadero. The energy savings of recycling one aluminum soda can could power a TV set for 4 hours, so I’m sure the energy saved from the metal we recycled would power every TV in Paso Robles for a week. The concrete — driveways, curb, gutter and sidewalk — were all recycled and brought back as base for our parking lot. There is always some miscellaneous debris that goes into a trash bin, but we didn’t need a dumpster, and over 95% of our final project was recycled. Insulation is one area where a modest extra cost can give you immediate savings. We used R19 insulation in our walls and ceiling, and it keeps our interiors 15 degrees cooler than the exterior even on the hottest days with no air conditioning. Insulating beyond what we were required to do shaves heating and cooling bills, and in our commercial project, makes the cost of doing business cheaper for our tenants. That makes for happier tenants and makes us more competitive as landlords. I wasn’t successful finding an installer for this size of a project who sold formaldehyde-free insulation, or better yet, batts made from recycled blue jeans, but it is available and preferable. Solar panels on our roof were structurally problematic although I wish I would have been more aggressive in trying to incorporate this technology. Instead, we purchased three-phase condensers for our air conditioning system that are more energy efficient, installed motion sensor light switches in all common areas, added ceiling fans, used a more efficient ducting pipe called Duct-Sox, and used fluorescent lighting from attractively designed fixtures. Yes, all of these choices cost more than their traditional counterparts. But the energy savings mean lower common-area costs to the tenants which can impact rent values, and it qualifies us for PG&E energy efficiency refunds. In one of our four units, we’re able to operate at approximately one-seventh the energy consumption allocated as standard. That makes me feel good. I like old concrete as a floor, but it’s not right for everyone. We convinced some of our tenants to forego their traditional choice of carpet for bamboo flooring. Commercial carpets in a retail situation can be worn out after a few years, and when it’s replaced, there is no recycler of carpet here in SLO, so it’s discarded into the landfill. Carpet is hyper-allergenic, typically made with petroleum, and is put down over concrete with out-gassing glues. Instead, we cost-shared a free-floating, environmentally friendly bamboo floor that has a life expectancy of 15-20 years and can be recycled upon its demise. That means a long-term value that’s healthier for the tenant(s) and building owners. It’s a small thing but we required in our tenant leases that everyone participate in our recycling program and each unit has its own recycling container. There is more that we did — there is more that we could have done. My hope is that I’ve shared an approach to our building project that encourages people to try to make a difference even with the little things in a “traditional” project. Building green doesn’t have to be a straw bale house powered off the grid with a goat for landscape maintenance. Conservation building is an awareness that can be brought to any construction, remodel or building you set out to do. William Ostrander Ulysses Inc., 544-0041 <back | top^ |