Let There Be Light.....

Any of you who have toured our building know that we put a lot of thought and effort into the lighting of the space.  Having comfortable, appropriate levels of light is critically important to making our spaces usable.   And lighting represents a significant opportunity to save energy over the long term.

To maximize the efficiency of our lighting, the design team worked closely with the folks who would install the lighting, Hirneisen Electric and with the main supplier of our electrical components, Fromm Electric.  This is another example of how local companies were closely involved in the project.

This is the story of the choices we made that came together with a great result.

New Report: Green Buildings and Improved Productivity

Once when I was giving a presentation about our (then proposed) building, I noted that there was a growing body of research that employee productivity and student performance improve in green buildings.  There was this grumpy guy in the group who said "I'm a CFO and I don't buy any of that improved productivity stuff."   Never really understood why being a CFO would cause you to ignore new information, but it made sense to him.

Last week, CB Richard Ellis a real estate firm and the Burnham Moore Center at the University of California at San Diego released research demonstrating again that employee productivity is higher in green buildings.

The study also noted the significantly higher rents that green buildings can attract.   The evidence continues to mount that green buildings may be the only economically rational and responsible approach to new construction.

For a copy of the study, click here.   Really sorry to disappoint my "CFO friend."  

Fantastic Building Photos

Click here to see some fantastic photos of the architectural details of our building. 

We walk all over it, but we love it.......

It's probably no surprise that we were careful about the carpet that we selected for the building. A big expense and a big choice in terms of its environmental impact, the carpet had to be functional, attractive and environmentally friendly. The carpet is made by InterfaceFlor and is a line called Entropy.

It's worth a trip to their website on environmental sustainability to learn about this company's extraordinary, industry leading practices. Among other things, the company is committed to carbon-neutrality--that's an admirable challenge.

The Entropy carpet line is between 66% and 74% recycled materials--33% of which is post-consumer and 33%-41% of the carpet is post-industrial.

Because the carpet goes down in squares rather than rolls, it will cost us less in maintenance. When a square becomes worn or damaged, we just replace that square, not the whole roll. And the squares go into the recycling stream, not the waste stream!

So when you visit the building, be sure to look down. We're proud of our carpet and the role it played in making the building more environmentally friendly.

Video

We've posted a video about the building on our YouTube channel. To view it, click here.

Where to Park

We love having visitors to our building and boy are we getting a lot of them! Not a day goes by without a couple of tours going through the building. The Lawrence R. Pugh/VF Corporation Community Conference Center is busy with meetings.

We'd hate to have someone's visit marred by a parking ticket. So here's some advice on where to park when you come visit. First, there's on-street parking along both Court Streets and Third Street. Plan to "feed the meter" on those spots, but they're great for a quick visit.

When we built the building, it was designed specifically to use the Chiarelli Parking Garage (pictured) which is owned by the Reading Parking Authority. We even pointed our entrance to the corner to make the walk across the street as short as possible. The rates are very reasonable.

For visitors with a handicap placard on their car, there's a spot behind our building, with an entrance on third street or the Chiarelli garage has spots. If you park behind the building, it maybe easiest to enter the building from back-side garden level entrance. Just push the buzzer next to the door.

Unfortunately, we don't have space in our small back lot for other visitors and non-employee cars parked there may be ticketed by the parking authority. The large lot next door is owned by the church and is also not available for visitors.

Our own sparkling wine!

At our ribbon cutting, Ed Anewalt, the owner of Anewalt's Landscape Contractor presented all the members of The Community Foundation staff with a commemorative bottle of Brut sparkling wine from Clover Hill Winery. Ed's family owns the winery and designed a special label to commemorate the opening of the building.

I still see a lot of bottles around the office, but they're all empty!

Water Bottles

According to "All about water.org" about 1.5 million tons of plastic are used bottling water. Of course, there are places where bottled water is a great way to get hydrated, but our building isn't one of them.

We placed filters on all the taps in our building and have banned water bottles from the building. It's one little step toward cutting down on the waste in our landfills and reducing energy usage in bottling and transporting water.

And we're finding that we like Reading City tap water just fine!

The plants....

There's not a lot of space for landscaping around the building, but we wanted to use what space we had to create at least a small urban green space. We hired Jonathan Alderson Landscape Architects to design a landscape plan that reflected the environmental mission of the building. We think they did a great job and that the landscaping will be a nice addition to downtown. By using native plants, we reduce the amount of water that is required to maintain them. In fact, after they're established, the plants should thrive on their own.

Fortunately, we found a great local landscaping company, Anewalt's Landscape Contractors to install the landscaping and last week, it was all completed. The rainy summer we've had has continued, so the plants have needed very little watering, but of course, all the water that we would use comes from our cistern, meaning we're not using Reading Water Authority water where we don't need it.

Where do those soda bottles go?

It's too bad that we had to build a fence between us and Zion Baptist Church. The church didn't want it, and neither did we, but the City of Reading requires it.

We made the best of it, and like all things tried to make it as green as possible. The fence is made of a product called "Trex," which is made of post-consumer plastic and can be used to replace wood. It's virtually indestructible, and keeps the plastics out of the landfill. Amity Fence Company from Reading installed the fence.

Trex is also used in the bike rack we installed. So far, we've had two events in the building and the bike rack was used both times!!

Some national attention

The Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities recently released a publication by Catharine Porter highlighting our building project as an example of leadership by community foundations on climate change. Click here to download a copy.

We also presented this work on a conference call with about 100 foundation executives from around the country, also sponsored by The Funders' Network.

Moving for peanuts

One of the advantages to our new location is our proximity to Reading's great restaurants. The oldest and most famous of these is Jimmie Kramer's Peanut Bar. Our good friends Harold and Michael Leifer who own the Peanut Bar invited our entire staff to a lunch in the private room called "Harold's Hideaway." They even had a special "Welcome To The Neighborhood" menu for us!

One time, when we were searching for a location, one of the realtors helping us asked me to define what an acceptable location was. "Well," I said, "I guess we want to be downtown, which would mean any place within walking distance of the Peanut Bar." I think it always amused Michael that we had such scientific site selection criteria.

But our lunch was a welcome respite from the unpacking frenzy and we're grateful to our friends at the Peanut Bar for their kind welcome.

A green move?

This photo shows some of our moving crew, from L&J Transportation unloading what we lovingly came to call "Tyga Boxes." These plastic boxes, which are made from recycled material, replace the old corrugated cardboard boxes, which would have been discarded (while putting them into the recycling stream is better than not......it's better still to reuse).

Members of our team loaded all of their office belongings into Tyga boxes, labeled them and stacked them four high on a cart. The L&J team loaded them onto an eighteen wheel truck along with our furniture and a few hours later, the whole job was complete. We completed the move in one day rather than the scheduled two days thanks to L&J's hard work and by August 28, we were able to begin unpacking some of the boxes.

The Tyga boxes were cool and very functional. But the folks from L&J told me that they're doing other things to go green, including adding governors to the engines of their trucks to limit speeds and improve fuel economy.

We're In.....

We held our official ribbon cutting ceremony yesterday and are now open for business at 237 Court Street. The hectic events of the past two weeks have kept me away from the blog, but there will be much to come as we report on the move and more of the cool features of our new digs.

WFMZ, our next door neighbors, did a great story on the ribbon cutting, it's available here: http://wfmz.img.entriq.net/htm/PopUpPlayer-v3.htm?articleID=1266727

The Long Awaited Third Countertop Posting......

Okay, maybe this isn't like the third secret of Fatima or anything, but more than one of you has asked what the "surprise" countertop is. After all, how much surprise can a countertop deliver.

Well, first of all, Vivi's desk (she's our extrarodinarily able Executive Assistant and any of you who call here know her voice) is made of an environmentally sustainable product. In fact, through using this product, we divert post-consumer waste from landfills.

And we think Vivi's countertop is also reflective of our mission. That was important. It needed to fit in.

The product is made by All Paper Recycling, Inc. in Le Center MN. They make countertops of shredded newspapers and shredded cardboard boxes. And they made Vivi's countertop out of......shredded money.

That's right, genuine U.S. currency. And on your tour of the building, if you look real closely, you'll see words like "Federal", "Ten" and "U.S." on some of the fragments.

ShetkaStone (the name of the product) is an environmentally friendly countertop like IceStone. But frankly, we just did it because it was way too cool to pass up.

Reading Eagle Story

Darrin Youker and Lauren Little of the Reading Eagle visited our building yesterday and did a feature story that appears in today's Reading Eagle. Click here.

IceStone Part II

Okay, even I didn't think I'd ever write two blog postings about countertops, but the IceStone story has some cool parts to it. And believe it or not, there will be a third (but that's another story and a whole lot of fun to look forward to.....you'll see). Most of the countertops were part of a very generous donation by Eric Jenkins, Julia Klein and their company, CHBriggs. They've been some of our biggest supporters during this building process with generous financial, technical and moral support. Their company is the region's leading distributor of interior building materials.

A few years ago, I got to know Bill McDonough through some work he did in educating foundations about green buildings, an area we were already involved in through our Metropolitan Edison Sustainable Energy Fund. We decided to bring Bill here to speak at our annual meeting and any of you who were there remember what a powerful, amazing speech he gave. Bill is clearly one of the leading thinkers in the field of environmentally sustainable design.

Bill arrived early for his speech, so Julia and Eric and I had a chance to chat with him for about an hour. At the time, CHBriggs was beginning to think about getting more heavily into the distribution of environmentally friendly products. Bill was beginning to think about creating a process to certify the environmental friendliness of products. And we were just beginning to think about what our new office space might look like. The ideas flew fast and furious at that brief meeting.

Today, one of Bill's companies, MBDC, has a process to certify products that meet the highest environmental standards. The process is known as "Cradle to Cradle" and IceStone is the first and only durable surface to meet MBDC's rigorous testing standards. Bill and his company have made it possible for end-users like Berks County Community Foundation to make informed judgments about what materials are actually environmentally (and people) friendly. And that helps make it easier to build green.

Likewise, the increased availability of these products through companies like CHBriggs makes it easier to acquire those materials. One of the reasons that green buildings actually did cost more in the past (though they don't now) is that it was hard to get environmentally sustainable products. With regional companies like CHBriggs getting heavily into the distribution of those products, that problem has gone away, along with the additional cost.

So, in many ways, our building was made possible by Bill McDonough and the folks at CHBriggs.

IceStone Part I

I'm not sure this picture does it justice, but this is one of the products you'll see heavily used in our building. It's a countertop (okay, the industry calls them "durable surfaces") called IceStone and it's another example of how everything can be more environmentally friendly, even countertops.

First, we get bonus points for the fact that it's produced nearby in Brooklyn (for green building purposes, "regional" usually means a 500-mile radius).

The product contains no VOCs so it doesn't degrade the air quality within the building. About 75% of the product (by weight) is recycled material, much of it broken glass that gives the countertops a really interesting appearance. In fact, one of our donors was excited that she could get IceStone for her house with glass from her favorite blue Vodka bottles (Skyy Vodka). At the Community Foundation, we stuck to more neutral colors. I'm not sure our team could agree on a favorite liquor!

My wife and I have survived one kitchen renovation together, and have sworn never to do another (though I'm sure we will). But if I did another, I think I might use Icestone for the countertops. It's a really beautiful, and environmentally friendly, product. There's a whole lot of information about IceStone available here on the web.

More on IceStone in the next post.

Someday they'll wonder what this is............

This is the concrete floor in the multipurpose room in the community conference center. While it will be covered with carpet, we're all amused by the prospect that some day, some carpet installer is going to pull the carpet up, see this and say, "Hey, what's that all about?"

We used the floor of the multipurpose room to test concrete stain colors for the lobby and other high traffic areas. Early on in the process of designing the building we decided that some of those areas would not get carpet.

Because of the volume of people we expect to come through the building (mostly to use the community conference center), we'd have to replace the carpet in those areas every two to three years. Not only is that expensive, it's not very environmentally responsible. I'll do a post on carpet later, but even fully recycled and fully recyclable carpet requires a lot of energy to produce, recycle and replace. And it's expensive.

So, after some arm twisting by the design team (I was a skeptic about the aesthetics) we decided to go with stained concrete. To be honest, I remained skeptical, but figured we could always cover it with carpet.

After looking at the samples above, the team picked a color (hard to see on this photo, but it's the darkest one). The lobby floor is stained and then a sealer is applied. The process is friendly to the building's air quality as there are no VOCs in the liquids. I'm told that about every decade or so, we might want to put another coat of the sealer (very inexpensive) down. I've seen the lobby and when you see it, I think you'll agree it's quite beautiful. I'm no longer a skeptic.

This is just one more example of how thoughtful design and materials selection is not only environmentally, but also economically, friendly.

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Green Roofs

This is the view from one of the third floor windows of the building. Yesterday, the folks from David Brothers Landscape Services finished putting the plants on the roof. Yep, those are plants on the roof.

On top of the roof surface, David Brothers put about 4-6 inches of soil and rock to create a bed for planting. Then they planted a variety of grasses and a low-growing plant called Sedum. The combination makes what is called a "green roof."

We included green roofs on a small part of the building primarily because we think they're so cool to look at and they give a great teaching opportunity. We made a decision to dedicate the bulk of the roof to capturing rainwater for the toilets and irrigation. But we thought a small nod to green roofs was really needed given the unique nature of the community. The benefits to us and the community we serve of a green roof are:

• An estimated 30 percent reduction in the amount of cooling needed to keep the space underneath comfortable in summer months. Our green roofs are too small for this to make a big difference, but every little bit helps.
• There will be almost no stormwater runoff from the green roofs. The soil and the vegetation should absorb virtually all of the rain that falls on them. Stormwater runoff is a major source of pollution in the Schuylkill River watershed (because of the "stuff" that the stormwater picks up on the way to the river).
• No one really knows how much this extends the life of the roof membranes. If you think about it, what causes the rubber roofs to deteriorate is mostly the exposure to sunlight. These roofs will never see any sunlight.
• The roofs lower the "heat island" effect that buildings cause in cities. That refers to the fact that the black roofs in cities get very hot. That hot air rises. It's a very inhospitable environment for birds. We won't be surprised to see a bird's nest (or two even) on our small roofs.

So, for a lot of good reasons, both environmental and economic, green roofs frequently are a better choice. And you have to admit....that's a nice view.

It's not any of the things you think it is........

Our new building is located in a surprisingly busy spot. It's not that lots of people hang out at Third and Court, although they should--we have great hot dogs.

While not a lot of people hang out, there is a lot of hustle and bustle. It's busy because savvy downtown drivers know that a turn on Third off of Penn Street and then a turn on Court is a lot easier than turning onto Fifth from Penn. So a lot of people go by.

Those folks have noticed that one of the large glass windows in front is shattered. There's a perfectly good explanation for that.

First, it's not a "green building feature."

Secondly, it's not a "design feature".....although it looks pretty cool.

Third, it's not the result of vandalism.

The far less prosaic explanation is that a construction ladder fell against the window just the right (or wrong) way and shattered the glass. It'll be fixed in the next couple of days by our friends at B&G glass who are doing all the glass work for the building.

But then again, we already knew this.......

Re:Vision Architecture was named "Best Green Architect" in this month's Philly Magazine "Best of Philly" issue. Congratulations to Scott, Jenn, Alex and the whole gang at Re:Vision.

The magazine cited their role in designing a green roof for the PECO building in Philadelphia, which you can now tour. We're all pretty sure that next year's Philly Magazine "Best of Philly" issue will recognize them again, but this time for an even more exciting project!

North, South, East and West – Which Window Will Fit the Best?

One of the most complex issues the design team dealt with was the selection of glass in the windows. This post is fairly technical (the original draft came from the energy modeling experts) but gives you an insight into the fact that some of the building decisions were more than "common sense," and in fact involved highly technical work.

Buildings respond to the climate and to their environment, so green building design is site-specific. Berks County’s climate, for example, has more overcast days than clear ones.

Daylight is free, so we designed our building to take advantage of all Berks County could offer. Designing to take advantage of sunlight reduces the number of lights that need to be on at any given time, thereby reducing the building’s electrical load. Since the lights won’t be on, we’re also eliminating any heat the lights would generate. This in turn lets us use a smaller air conditioning unit.

One of the ways architects ensure that daylight is put to good use is to use different types of glass depending on the direction a window faces and the climate. That’s because the sun’s intensity shifts as it moves across the building during the day and throughout the year.

Bear with me, I’m going to get a little technical here.

The basic properties of glass are visual light transmittance (VLT) and solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC).

VLT is the amount of light that can pass through the glass. Single-pane clear glass windows have about an 89% VLT. The foundation’s building has three different VLTs: 56, 60, and 70.

The solar heat gain coefficient (or SHGC,) indicates how much heat passes in and out. The SHGC of the foundation’s building ranges from 0.32 to 0.39. Any value below 0.35 is good.

VLT and SHGC can often be at odds with each other in the glass selection process. But, by selecting a window that balances both values with its position on the building, you end up with the proper amount of daylight filtering through without making the tenants feel like they’ve taken up residence in a greenhouse.

As the sun comes up in the east, it’s low in the sky which can cause glare. Solar radiation in these low rays can quickly heat up a building that is cool from being unoccupied during the night. To compensate for the sun’s position as it rises, the windows on the east side of the building have a VLT of 56 and a SHGC of .38.

As the sun moves higher as it approaches noon, its direct light and heat can be blocked with overhangs and shading devices.

The south side of the building is affected by both morning and evening sun so the VLT on the south side is 60% with an SHGC of .38. I

In the winter in Berks County, the heat from the sun helps warm the building. As the sun begins to set, it has the same low angles as the morning, but the building is already warm from being occupied all day. For this reason, the VLT of glass on the west side is 56 with a SHGC of 0.32.

The north side of the building is not impacted by the sun’s movement, so the windows there are larger with a higher VLT of 70 and SHGC of 0.39. These windows need to let as much light in and keep as much heat in as possible in the winter.

Yes, it all sounds very confusing. But the bottom line is this: by working with our environment and climate, we’ve created a window scheme on all four sides of the building that will provide more than 80% of the building’s light without ever flipping on a switch. We’re saving energy and money on our heating and cooling units by being smart about our windows. It just makes sense.

Urban Trees aren't new for us......

Incidentally, Berks County Community Foundation isn't new to the urban tree scene. We manage endowed funds to support trees in the Borough of Boyertown and to maintain trees in Mt. Penn Borough. We've done a lot of that work with the Berks County Conservancy. If you're interested in supporting tree planting and maintanence in your Berks County town, we'd be happy to talk with you.

For information about a great organization that works all across the United States, visit the Earthnxt website. Earthnxt is run by our friend Janet Milkman, who worked with the Community Foundation team when she was CEO of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania.

Seriously, we won't hug them......

Before we started this process, I wouldn't have thought of trees as "part of the building." Scott Kelly of Re:Vision taught me I was wrong about that on our first visit to the site. When Scott, Bill Vitale (of DesignWorks) and I first visited the site, I asked Scott if the site would be good for a green building. Scott pulled out a solar path finder (which is like a half-sphere reflecting globe) and began talking excitedly about how the sun would move across the site.

Almost immediately, he pointed to the length of Court Street on the site and said, "We'll plant trees along here"(remember, we hadn't even decided to buy the property yet). Scott explained to me that deciduous trees along the southern side of the building would provide shade during the summer months that would help reduce the cooling requirement of the building, the size of the air conditioner we would need, and our overall energy costs.

Then, in the winter months when the sun sits low in the sky, the leaves would be gone. That's when you want to grab as much of the sun's heat as you can to lower the amount of heat you need to generate to warm the building. And, you guessed it, smaller heat plant = lower energy costs.

So, as soon as the building is done, trees will be planted along the southern, eastern and western sides of the building.....all carefully positioned to help naturally manage sunlight. For an interesting set of facts about the environmental benefits of trees, click here.

Building Progress Photos

We have new photos of the building's progress. Click on the link below to view them!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30332040@N04/sets/72157621892336942/

What Style Is This?

Last week, I visited the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington. HUD is housed in the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, quite possibly one of the ugliest buildings on the planet (and I've visited Soviet-built government office buildings). My friend Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution calls it "ten floors of basement", which is pretty kind. In asking about it I learned it is built in what is called the "brutalist style".

Knowing that architects love to classify buildings by styles, I asked our team what style our building was built in. Bill Vitale of DesignWorks said that it could be thought of as "contemporary" or "modern" but that it really was of an emerging style that he thinks will be called "green" where the design reflects the effort to minimize the environmental impact and energy usage of the building while maximizing internal efficiency and comfort.

Jenn Rezelli of Re:Vision Architecture called our building "contextual" in that it is designed to complement the existing buildings around it both in materials, style and scale.

These two ideas: Green and Contextual really capture what we set out to do. We wanted to build a green building that captured the best building technology available and put it to use. We also wanted a building that added to the architectural heritage of downtown Reading and felt like it belonged in the city.

So, "Contextual Green" it is. Thank God it's not "brutalist".

New Photo of Front of Building

This is a photo of the building from the Chiarelli parking garage at 3rd and Court Streets. The webcam was in a great position during the first part of construction, but only gives you a view of the Washington Street side of the building. Frankly, that side was built with the assumption that Zion Baptist Church will build their site out and block the view of our building. (We made a grant to them to develop a master plan to do just that).

So, I took this picture which shows you the front entrance of the building.

Pittsburgh leading in green buildings.

Pittsburgh is taking a leadership role in encouraging green buildings by requiring buildings that the city supports meet green standards. Great article here. Would be great to see Berks County municipalities show this kind of leadership. If any of them are interested, we'd be happy to share what we've learned.

Eliminating (mostly) the yawns......

There are generally two reasons that people get groggy and start to yawn in meetings. Sometimes, it's just a boring meeting. But more often than not, the problem is that the carbon dioxide level in the room has gotten too high by having people in the room for too long. CO2 makes you sleepy. Most air exchange units kick on only when the temperature deviates from what's set on the thermostat.

Our first floor meeting rooms are equipped with CO2 detectors that will cause the air exchange system to kick in if the level becomes too high. That will pump fresh air into the room, eliminating the yawning.

Now, if we could only figure out a way to prevent boring meetings.

Philadelphia Inquirer Article on Green Jobs

One of the things we've tried to do with our building is to find ways to "add social benefit". That would be a great topic for the future. Others in the green building movement have as well, and today's Philadelphia Inquirer has an interesting article on using the green building movement to create jobs for former prisoners. Click here.

Imagine: Windows that work!

The windows in the building will actually open! In the process of designing the building, the architects noted that there was no compelling reason to seal the building up like a Tupperware container. In fact, allowing occupants to open the building can cut down on the amount of energy we use by not running the air conditioning on days when opening the windows would do.

But like everything in the building, it's not left to chance. An external sensor will measure the heat and humidity to determine whether it would be better to open the window or run the air conditioner. A redlight/greenlight system in each hallway will illuminate. Red lights mean windows closed (and air systems on), green lights mean you're free to open the window.

It's Pretty Safe Down Here.....

Members of the Berks County Community Foundation team sometimes get asked, "Aren't you afraid to work downtown"? I think I can speak for all of them in saying: "No." In fifteen years of working in downtown Reading, none of us have either been bothered by anybody, nor do we know any office workers who have. We move around downtown, often at odd hours, without much concern for our personal safety. In short, we don't see any particular reason to be any more or less vigilant here than we would be in mall parking lot for instance.

But when we selected the site, we gave some thought to safety, particularly because we knew we'd be inviting people to use the community conference center. Actually, if you take a minute to consider our site, you'd realize it might be about as safe a place to work as there is in Berks County.

The most significant key to safety in a city setting is to be near activity. Think about it....is there anyplace where you would feel safer than Times Square? The sheer number of people there make it a really bad place for bad guys.

Our site has some very similar built in protections. There are a lot of eyes on our property at any given time.

First, the bus terminal that is a constant buzz of activity of people riding to Harrisburg, Philadelphia and New York. As a frequent Bieber Bus rider, I know how many people come in and go out of that building--right next to ours--each day.

Catty corner from our building is a Reading Fire Department station which is staffed 24/7 and a constant buzz of activity.

We're also directly across the street from the Chiarelli Parking Garage attendant booth. And of course, there's "The Hot Dog Guy" Percy Price. Percy's been watching out after our corner for six years and I assure you nothing goes on in that neighberhood that he doesn't know about. So, from a "people watching out" perspective, this is a surprisingly visible and safe corner.

We also have a great resource available to us through the Downtown Improvement District. Not only do their ambassadors roam the area to provide additional security, they will, on request escort guests to or from the building from the Chiarelli garage. So even with evening meetings, we want our guests to feel secure.

Our corner is a busy part of the City of Reading, and that brings some assurance of safety. Now, if we only had a naked cowboy....it'd be just like Times Square.

Air Quality Part II: Shocking Proof of Added Expense of Building Green!

In an earlier post, we talked about the importance of paint in preserving air quality. Here's another example of how green building construction improves air quality in a building--and yes---shockingly adds expense. As you can see in the photo above, the ends of our air duct are wrapped in plastic wrap.

In typical building construction, air ducts are roughed in, then all the walls are put in. This involves cutting drywall, sanding it, and is one of the dustiest phases of the whole construction process. Well, as those ducts sit there, all that dust settles into them. On move-in day, the owner turns on the air exchange units and all that dust blows out, right into the lungs of the employees.

Our ducts are sealed and will be until the building is ready for occupancy. Thus, no construction dust exposure during the early weeks of occupancy.

This is one of the added expenses of building green, because in addition to all of the other things that go into the building, we'll get charged for a couple of rolls of Saran Wrap. Finally......proof of the added expense of green buildings. I knew we'd find it somewhere!

June Waste Report

The Berks County Community Foundation project is implementing a job-site recycling program with a goal of diverting 75% of the project’s waste from landfills. To date 238.18 tons of material or 95.04% of the project’s waste has been diverted from landfills.

As we enter the final phases of construction, it appears very possible that we could finish this project at or above the 95% mark since this is done by weight and the removal of the sidewalks (which will be diverted) and the drywall waste (which is all recycled) hasn't hit the report yet.

I'm told that while this kind of diversion isn't unprecedented, it's very rare and reflects an amazing job by the team from Butz/Burkey. And remember, it saved us money!

Using The Building: Sign Up Now.

When we set out to find a permanent home for Berks County Community Foundation, we identified the need to create meeting space that would support our mission. We also wanted to share that space with the community both to maximize its utility and to encourage local groups to meet downtown in space that would be comfortable and supportive of their work.

The first floor of the building is dedicated as a "Community Conference Center" with great space for meetings. There is a multi purpose room that can be divided into two parts. The room can be configured in many ways, but to give you an idea, it will seat about 75 in a classroom configuration. The room will be equipped with powerpoint technology and has ample white board and push-pin space. The room divides with a movable divider, so it's very flexible.

There is also a small meeting room, that will be configured like a living room. This would be the perfect location for an interview (maybe a search committee would use it), or a small breakout from the larger room.

The centerpiece of the floor is a board room with all the technology you'd find in a Fortune 500 facility. There is built in projection technology, as well as advanced communications technology (though not two-way video for the moment). If a board is meeting and people need to join by phone, fixed microphones and speakers will provide a huge improvement over traditional (squawk box in the middle of the table) technology.

The lobby of the building provides room for gathering and /or a post-meeting reception. And there's a kitchen to support food service during the meetings.

And the best part is the price: For local public benefit organizations who want to use the space during the day, there is no charge for using the space during business hours. A modest charge will apply after hours to cover our cost of keeping the building open (unless a community foundation staff member is part of the group). The space is also available to for-profit groups at a fee.

To schedule a meeting in the building, contact Sally Ott at The Community Foundation at sallyo@bccf.org or 610-685-2223. We are accepting events beginning in mid-September.

Paint Part II and Air Quality Part I

The paint doesn't smell. There's just no "new paint smell" in the building. And apparently, that's a good thing.

The smell of new paint is actually the paint giving off (or "off-gassing") substances known as Volatile Organic Chemicals or "VOCs". While that smell might be nice, it's sure not good for you. VOCs are known cancer-causing agents. To improve the air quality of the building, we specified no-VOC paints (or in some cases very low VOC paints).

These no VOC paints are on their way to becoming the standard in construction. They're also part of why green buildings used to have a construction cost premium, but don't anymore. Because of their health and environmental benefits, they're becoming widely adopted and the price of no VOC paints has fallen to essentially be equivalent to the old, standard paint.

Going into this project, I couldn't imagine writing two blog posts on "paint", but it....like everything else in the building.....has been carefully considered for economic, environmental and energy impact.

Interior paint part I (seriously)

The painters have begun painting the interior walls. The folks on the construction team have been joking about this paint all along. In traditional construction, interior paint colors are usually selected ....oh, about now in the process. We selected our interior paint colors at one of the first meetings as they need to have a certain reflectiveness and play a role in the daylight modeling and energy modeling.

By picking paint that reflects rather than absorbs light, we are able to use more of the sunlight in our workspaces. In fact, through careful design, the team has created a situation where on a cloudless day, about 80% of the light in our workspaces will be natural daylight. That means that we'll need to use fewer interior lights on those days, which saves electricity.

But wait...(as the infomercials say).....there's more. The days with the brightest sunlight--particularly in the summer--tend to be those that would require the most air conditioning. The use of fewer electric lights on those days means less heat generated by the lights themselves and therefore, a lower demand on the air conditioning units saving.....you guessed it.....more electricity.

If I'm learning this all right from the experts, this is what's known as "integrated design" and why interior paint colors can actually play a role in saving money.

Where’s The Solar (Part III): This Is Where It Gets Interactive….

In the past, we’ve talked about passive solar and solar hot water technologies as ways to capture the sun’s rays and put them to good use. We’re very aggressively using passive solar, but opted against using solar hot water as we won’t use enough hot water to justify the system.

But the type of solar technology that’s causing the most excitement in the media today is called “Photovoltaics,” panels that convert solar energy into electric power that can be used on the site, or sold back to the power company. In planning our building, we installed conduits to run wiring from the roof to the garden level if we ever added solar panels, but we didn’t add the solar panels themselves.

Today, we’ll look at “why” a building that is so aggressively designed to be energy efficient and environmentally friendly doesn’t have photovoltaic panels installed on its roof---and what you can do to change that.

But first, two bits of background:

1. If there is one overriding principle that I have learned through the process of designing and building this building, it is that smart building starts with the premise that no two buildings are alike. Every site is different, every use is different, every neighborhood is different—and these factors interact in a myriad of ways. Figuring out the smartest use of technology is a case-by-case effort. But that’s where the efficiencies come in.
   
   
2. We wanted to build a building that would cause other people to re-think the way we build buildings in the community and adopt green building technologies. To do that, the building had to make not only environmental and energy sense—it had to make economic sense as well. We declared early on in the process that the building had to be economically defensible both as a reflection of our commitment to financial stewardship, and as a way to encourage others to follow our lead.

Given these two principles, our threshold for installing new technology in the building was that it had to demonstrate a payback of ten years or less as opposed to the alternative. So far, for our building, at our site, photovoltaic energy generation hasn’t demonstrated that payback.

Since photovoltaic energy is so environmentally friendly, this has been a deep source of frustration to the design team, but it’s a point on which we won’t waiver. Our analysis of the economics of using solar panels suggests that it would take about 60 years to recoup the investment. Again, that’s for our building and our use. Unlike private homeowners who are installing solar panels, for instance, The Community Foundation can’t avail itself of tax credits to offset the cost (we don’t pay income taxes).

Still, we know there are a lot of passionate solar advocates out there. So here’s our offer: Prove us wrong.

Franki and I will happily sit down and discuss any serious proposal regarding solar cells. Here’s what you’d need to know to calculate the potential:

We’re using in our assumptions a rate of $0992/kWh for the energy we purchase from Met Ed. In addition, we’re paying $.00378/ kWh for the Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) for wind power. Both of these numbers can be used in calculating our cost. You should assume that building occupancy will commence (for these purposes) on September 1, 2009.

We acknowledge that the lifting of rate caps will have an effect on electric prices. For our assumptions, we assume that the cost/kWh will increase by 35% to $.13392 effective January 1, 2011. We do not presume that the RECs will increase in price.

For a complete copy of our energy modeling, which would provide you with additional information about the building’s energy requirements, click here.

A complete roof plan is available here which would allow someone to calculate the number of panels. Again, conduit is available through the building to connect the roof panels to the utility rooms.

So, if there’s someone out there who’s got a real plan that would allow us to install photovoltaic and recoup their cost in under ten years with these assumptions, we’d love to hear from you. You can email me directly at kevinm@bccf.org

Where's the Solar? Part II

In addition to passive solar, some really great technology for creating hot water using solar power exists. Generally, this involves putting panels on the roof of a building and circulating water through those panels (through black tubes). As the water circulates through the panels, it heats up and is brought into the building at fairly high temperatures. Depending on the system and the environment, it may need additional heating but a lot of energy is saved by using the roof panels.

Berks County Community Foundation, through the Metropolitan Energy Company Sustainable Energy Fund actually helped provide financing for a solar hot water system at the Adams County Prison. If you think about it, a prison uses alot of hot water.

On the other hand, an office building like ours uses very little hot water. Not nearly enough to justify installing a solar hot water system.

This of course, illustrates one of the principles of the green building idea. There is no "one size fits all" approach to a smart building. Every building has a different use, a different environment, different demands and the technology that might work for one may not work for the next.

In the next posting, we'll explore why our building doesn't (currently) include plans for generating electricity from solar panels (called "photovoltaics" or "PV" for short) and what YOU might be able to do about it.

All's Well.......

Many downtown workers might have noticed that the Reading Fire Department responded to a call at the site of our construction project at Third Street and Court Streets. Apparently flames and thick black smoke were pretty visible. As soon as we heard about it, Franki and I raced down there as well.

The sandwich truck that comes each morning and sells food to the workers on the site apparently exploded and was engulfed in flames. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The young lady driving the truck escaped right before things got out of hand. The Reading Fire Department (which is right across the street) had things under control quickly. Chief Rehr told us that the propane in the truck had leaked and started the fire.

Everybody is fine, as best we could tell there was no damage beyond the truck and work resumed pretty quickly.

Where's The Solar? Part I

One of the most frequently asked questions about the building is: Why aren't you using solar power? Well, I guess we need to provide a little background.

Obviously, the sun's energy provides a tremendous amount of energy even if those of us in Berks County can't remember seeing the sun for a while.

In a building like ours, there are really three ways to capture that energy and use it for our purposes.

The first of these is called "passive solar". Using passive solar is about capturing sunlight in ways that effectively light and heat spaces. The only technology involved is planning and window.

Our building is all about passive solar. The side of the building that faces Court Street is actually canted eleven degrees off the property line. That gives the building a perfect southern exposure, which maximizes the ability to capture the warmest and brightest sunlight. All of this involves trade-offs. That light will provide heat during the winter, but of course, adds to the cooling load in the summer Those tradeoffs, and how to maximize the benefit were an important part of our energy modeling and played a big role in how the building was designed.

But the light capture is an important part of our planned overall 43% savings in energy costs. In fact, the ceilings in some of the offices will actually slant slightly downward, with the high side being the south side. That will force the light to reflect into the workspaces more efficiently. On a clear day, as much as 80% of the light in our workspaces will be sunlight.

Each of the four sides of the building has a different type of light coming into the building. So, with careful computer modeling at their side, the architects specified four different types of glass, each designed to maximize the heat/light tradeoff in the building.

In the next post, Solar Hot Water...and why we're not using it in the building.

Estimated Completion Date, etc.

Lots of folks have asked about the estimated completion date for the building. Many of you who drive past Third and Court Streets have noticed that the building is beginning to look pretty finished on the outside.

Of course, the way we built it (putting the roof on last) means that less happened on the inside than the outside would suggest.

We expect the building to be completed around August 15. We imagine that The Community Foundation and the Alzheimer's Association will be in the building by August 28.

Events to share the building with the community (and there will be a lot of them) will begin in mid-September. So watch here for more information.

Link to Recycling Report

For readers who'd actually like to see one of the monthly recycling reports with detail and photos, click here. (This pdf file may take a few moments to download.)

Recycling Report (Good News) and Drywall

The May Recycling Report is in and we're back over 95% of the construction waste from the site being diverted from landfills!

Our project is implementing a job-site recycling program with a goal of diverting 75% of the project’s waste from landfills. To date 227.43 tons of material or 96.26% of the project’s waste has been diverted from landfills.

Matt Forrer (LEED AP), one of the construction managers from Butz/Burkey thinks that this percentage may increase over the next month as drywall (all recyclable) starts to be put into the building. The workers started hanging the drywall last week, a process that's expected to last about three weeks.

Just what is 154,401 lbs. of carbon dioxide?

As I mentioned in an earlier post we're really excited about the fact that we've chosen 100% wind power for the building. The folks at Rewable Choice Energy tell us that we'll be avoiding putting 154,401 lbs. of CO2 in the air each year. So, I asked them, what does 154, 401 lbs. of CO2 mean?

Well, it turns out that it's similar to:

• Taking 13 passenger cars off the road for a year
• Not building nine new homes
• Not using 2,918 propane cylinders in my home barbeque (that's a lot of burgers)
• Not using 163 barrels of oil--or 7,958 gallons of gasoline
• Not taking six trips around the world--or one trip to the moon in a passenger car

When you put it that way, wind power seems like a good idea.

We're bringing Coney Island to 3rd and Court

One element of building green is using, whenever possible, reclaimed materials from older buildings or other uses.   For a while now, we've been looking for JUST the right wood to use as the treads on the main staircase of the building.  And the team has looked at a lot of wood.  Partly, we were looking for the right wood, partly for the right story.   

Well, we found both.  The wood for the treads on our main staircase will be reclaimed from the old boardwalk at Coney Island in New York City.   How cool is that?

It's Electric News!

During the construction of the building, Franki Aitken (our CFO) has had to make a million decisions. Just the other day, there was a long meeting about hand soap (more on that later).

Last week, Franki selected the company that will sell us the electric power for the building. Like all such decisions, the environmental impact and the economic impact had to be worked out. Working with Renewable Energy Choice, a Colorado based company, Franki was able to purchase a very attractive contract for our electricity.

The exciting thing is that 100% of the electricity our building uses will come from wind generated power at a very reasonable price (roughly $.00378 per kw/h).

A lot of people don't understand how this works, so let me give it my best layman's explanation. Obviously, you can't buy a specific electron and know how it was generated. So the best way I've found to think of the power grid is as a stream. Up stream, somebody pours a gallon of water into the stream and sells to somebody downstream the right to take a gallon out. Obviously, the water gets all mixed up with other water in the stream, but the stream is kept whole.

That's pretty much how the electric grid works. People generate power lots of different ways and put it onto the electric grid for people to pull down. We're paying Renewable Energy Choice to put power that was generated by windmills onto the grid so we can use it to power our building.

So when you visit our building, remember that none of the electricity is adding pollutants to the atmosphere and it was a really good buy to boot!

Channel 69 Story

WFMZ Channel 69 did a story featuring our roof on yesterday's news. You can view it here.

Back on Track

If you check out the webcam, you can see that the roof panels have started to go on the building beginning with the right (west) side of the roof. The first one was placed yesterday (Wed.) morning. As of this morning, about a quarter of the roof is on. My guess is that if we're lucky with weather, we could have the whole roof on by the weekend.

We think the building will be ready for occupancy by about August 15. Keep an eye on our progress!

Hiccup

As Heidi Williamson reported the construction crews began to install the roof panels last week. Like most of the building the roof panels come prefabricated, which cuts down on waste and energy costs.

Unfortunately, the panels just didn't fit together properly. The company that manufactured them made a mistake and didn't get the joints right. This falls into the category of "stuff that happens" and is one of the very few construction glitches that we've hit in this project. I still believe that the reason we've had so few challenges on the job site is that the integrated design process we went through lead to a more thorough plan for constructing the building. While this little problem is an annoying delay, I think we've had fewer of those than on most projects.

So......we had been planning a July 25 completion date and we're now pushed back three weeks to mid-August. We still plan to do a series of events in September to introduce the community to the new building, but we'll just have a little less time to hang the pictures!

Saving Money AND Saving Landfill Space

Last week, Eric Burkey from Burkey Construction and I took a group from the Western Berks Ambulance Association on a tour of the building project.

We talked a lot about construction site recycling. Through April, we've generated about 217 tons of waste, with over 97% of it being diverted away from Landfills. I'd love to hear from readers of this blog if anyone has ever seen numbers like this in a prior project. As I talk to people who know a lot about green buildings, they're generally blown away by the landfill diversion rate.

Eric told the group that when we first made a commitment to recycling at least 75% of our waste, we thought it would actually add to the cost of the building. After all, the wastes need to be sorted and shipped to recycling facilities. Eric now believes that we're actually saving money (and the environment) through the virtual elimination of landfill fees.

Great news!

A video update

Heidi Williamson, our VP of communications, shot a two minute video of the building's progress today.

You can watch it here:

March Waste Report

Our goal on the project is to divert 75% of the project’s waste from landfills. Through March, 205.69 tons of material or 98.46% of the project’s waste has been diverted from landfills. Most of this has waste has been repurposed, but some of it has gone into the recycling stream.

The team is working hard on this.....and doing an amazing job. Just imagine if all construction sites did this!

New York Times Article on Concrete

Earlier, I wrote an entry about the concrete in our building and the inclusion of fly ash. The New York Times recently ran an article providing more details about the efforts of the Concrete Industry to lower their carbon footprint. You can check it out here.

We'll let the light in.....

Those of you following the progress of the building through the webcam or just by driving down Washington Street have seen that the prefabricated metal panels that make up the walls have now been installed on the north side of the building. Don't worry.......we'll have windows! The panels get installed then the windows are cut out of them. It does look a little stark right now, though!

The panels are a whole story in themselves. Stay tuned....

Karen and Barry's Log Home Video on BCTV

Today, Barry Miller, Greg Doskus, and Bill Vitale appeared on Building Green to show the progress the Miller's are making as they reconstruct their log home. After a brief introduction, Barry uses photographs and video footage to show the green elements of this unique project. You can watch it online at BCTV's website by clicking here: http://www.bctv.org/WatchArchive.aspx?id=1356.

Happy Earth Day!

Kevin and Matt Forrer of Burkey Construction talk about Earth Day and Green Building.

This Log House - Entry 5

I know it’s silly, but I find myself vaguely irritated when we have to use new materials in building this house.

Restore/reuse/repurpose has been our guiding principle. Old barn siding has been re-milled to become floorboards and paneling; barn floorboards have been incorporated as stair treads and the floor of the screened porch. Old barn timbers (mostly hand-hewn oak, with some chestnut) have become support posts for the house’s “summer beams” and porch, as well as newel posts for the stairway. Appropriate mid-1800s interior doors have been found at the Centre Park Artifacts Bank in Reading and through private owners along the mountain to supplement the four-panel doors salvaged from the house before it was taken down, and the house’s original beaded board is again being used on the walls of this resurrected house.

Massive flagstones from a demolished mansion in Pottsville are waiting to help divert storm water away from the building – and generally enrich the landscape. Foundation stones from the original house (see Entry 1) will grace the retaining wall on the west and become an outdoor seating area.

Even the old hand pump, the only thing that survived the fire besides the stone, will be put back to work atop a new concrete slab over the original shallow well.

So while, yes, we’re using some new components like 2x4s and drywall for interior rooms, a lot of the fun and satisfaction – for no extra money – has been in giving extended or reshaped life to old, useful, and often beautiful materials.

Brick Going Up!

The brick is rapidly going up on the building and--like every material--was carefully considered for its impact on the environment and its economics.

The Benson brick for the Berks County Community Foundation is manufactured at Glen-Gery's York, PA plant, which is 57 miles from the job site.  100% of the materials used in the manufacturing process are harvested from three quarries, all of which are located in close proximity to Dover, PA, which is 63 miles from the job site.  Using materials that come from relatively close to the project--like this brick--reduces the energy required to transport them.

We had hoped to select a brick that was manufactured at the Berks County plant, but none of the styles from that site were the right fit for the neighborhood.

Brick is durable.  It likely won't need to be replaced during the life of the building.  And, it's attractive.  We chose a brick that would complement the brick of the original wing of Zion Baptist Church and the GoggleWorks, two dominant structures in the neighborhood.

Stop by and take a peek.   Or check out the webcam to follow the progress at http://www.app-techs.com/files/download/client/burkey/netCamSample_webcam.html

Archived Episodes of Building Green

Building Green is a monthly television show on BCTV. You can access archived episodes and learn more about the foundation's building by clicking here: http://www.bccf.org/building/aboutthebuilding.html

Waste Report

I know it's a little strange to get excited about the monthly trash report, but building green means being concerned about every part of the process the whole way through the process. Our goal is to divert 75% of the total waste generated on the site to recycling or other non-landfill destinations.

Our February report says we've now removed about 200 tons of waste and diverted 99.23% of it from the landfill!

I'm just coming back from a conference of funders interested in green buildings who were absolutely blown away by that number!!

Building Green on St. Patrick's Day

Every detail in this building gets a green review, including our signage. On Friday morning Teresa and Jeff from Partners Design in Bernville met us at the building to check the size for the lettering over the front entrance. We're spelling out the whole name ... Berks County Community Foundation ... on the fascia over the front windows.

In true green spirit, Partners created a way for our signs to eliminate waste. In addition to the lettering over the front windows, we need a large sign on the north side of the building that will face Washington St. We're going to punch the letters out of the north-side sign and use them to spell out the name over the front entrance. Two signs, one piece of metal. The northside is pictured at right. I don't think we've shown you this view before.

Partners is also designing the artwork that will appear inside the building. We're including "Impact Points," which are graphics that tell visitors what's green in any given location. One impact point will be the lid to our cistern. Here you see a standard manhole cover for the cistern. The final manhole cover will be embossed with the image from the foundation's logo. You'll be able to see it when you walk from the lobby down the hallway to the Community Conference Center.

Heidi

Burkey Building Our Building and Capacity

Congratulations to the folks at Burkey Construction. With three of their team members having now passed the LEED AP test, they're up to five professionals who have great qualifications to help build a green building.

Energy Modeling

One part of our effort to design and build a very energy efficient building is a process called "energy modeling".   This is a complex computer-based system for evaluating all of the energy use of our building.  After all, one of our goals is to create a building that maximizes both the stewardship of our financial resources and the stewardship of our region's environmental resources.

The way that the engineers do this is to compare the expected usage of energy in our building to a "standard construction" building.  The standard construction benchmark is based on a set of standards known as "ASHRAE", which stands for the organization that issues the standards, The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.  This is essentially the energy that a "regular" building would use.  

The current projection for our building is that it will use 42.3% less energy than a standard building!!  That's an amazing performance, but frankly, a little off what we had hoped.   We had initially hoped to save as much as 50%, but the tradeoffs that were required to hit that number didn't pay off.   

To translate these savings into dollars--something that directly benefits the community--our team put together the following budget comparison:

              Standard Building   Our Building Budget

Electric                                 $16,113                    $11,392

Gas                                        20,344                        9,643

Total Energy Budget            36,457                      21,035

Energy Cost/SqFt                      $2.50                      $  1.44 

This $15,000 a year (every year) savings is money that can go to important programs in the community....and it reflects a benefit to the community in lower energy consumption.  That's cleaner air AND cheaper energy.   A great deal!

The report is pretty technical and probably best understood by engineers.  If anyone would like a copy, just drop me an email and we'll be happy to send it to you.

This Log House - Entry 4

The problem: how do you balance the beauty of exposed old logs with the desire to heat the building with as little purchased energy as possible -- and meet or exceed the RESNET home energy standards (http://www.natresnet.org/)?

Wood is a rather poor insulator. Although the mass of the 7” thick old-growth oak heartwood log walls does absorb and release heat, providing somewhat more thermal comfort than indicated by their nominal low R-value, that doesn’t mean there is adequate insulation. The insulating quality of traditional chinking (the “filler” between the logs) is even worse.

Our solution: leave the logs exposed on the interior for parts of the southern and eastern walls – the living room, dining area and morning coffee alcove -- then super-insulate the rest.

In every wall of the house, the spaces between the logs have been packed with insulation, awaiting the application of modern chinking material (yes, there is such a thing) to the exterior, as well as to the exposed interior walls. The interior face of the remaining walls has been covered with rigid polyisocyanurate (R-6.5 per inch). Parallel stud walls, filled with the same material, will soon be paneled with old beaded boards recovered during dismantling of the log structure. The resulting R-29 walls largely offset the low insulating value of the exposed areas in the log structure, and combine with the insulated concrete form (ICF) foundation to make the total structure energy efficient.

Other components: layers of insulation adding up to R-52 between (and on) the attic floor joists, insulation on the band joist (rim joist) of the structural deck supporting the house, and extra caulking in other places where cold air could infiltrate. The foyers on the living and garden levels are essentially air locks to keep cold air from sweeping in when the outside doors are opened.

It’s snug.

Highlands at Wyomissing Visit

Yesterday, I had a chance to do a presentation about our building project to the Public Affairs Breakfast at the Highlands at Wyomissing.  Over 50 Highlands residents gathered to learn about our project.   We had a great visit and they were probably the most interested and informed group that we've met with on the project.  My thanks to June Gwyn for inviting me.

If you'd like to have someone come talk about the building to your group.....or better yet....if you'd like to schedule a group visit to the building after September 1, give us a call at 610-685-2223 and we'll work with you to find a date.

Excellent progress on green home

I am thrilled to report that our "green" house is totally closed in and being heated with the geo-thermal system. All of our outside windows and doors are installed, and the interior trim and doors are now being put into place.

The recycled cement siding has been placed on the exterior walls and the metal roof is in place. The foundation for the portions of the roof that will be planted is also done. The actual plants will be placed on those roofing areas in the spring. The 10,000 gallon cistern is buried and will take the roof water and distribute it to the gardens and the toilets as "gray water."

The next phase of the construction will entail finishing the interior. This includes painting, laying the recycled oak floor in some areas and cork in other areas, installing the cabinetry and all the hardware.

We are using all local subcontractors and buying locally whenever possible. This way we are saving fuel.

Every day there are more decisions to make. Always we take the "green route" by trying to find an environmentally friendly solution. It has been informative and exciting to realize how many products are now available that meet the "green" test. While often the product might be slightlymore expensive in the beginning, the payback will quickly make it more economical.

Carolyn Holleran

Making progress

The triblend concrete is poured over the radiant tubes now, and the building is taking shape. Click here to see a slideshow of the progress:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30332040@N04/?saved=1

It's wrapped in plastic now.

At night, the building (encased in plastic) is lit up while the concrete cures. Check it out here. You can start to sense what the building will look like.

Kevin