Formerly Faddish, 'Green' Is Standard
Aug 20 - Arkansas Business
Energy-efficient building techniques that were once considered
faddish or experimental have become standard as builders and owners in
Arkansas and beyond have realized the long-term savings to be had.
Nationwide, 92 percent of companies said that operational savings
influenced their decisions to undertake energy-efficiency projects,
according to a recent study by McGraw Hill Construction.
In Arkansas, the desire to improve energy efficiency is showing up in
the use of an integrated design approach, building to certifiable
standards without necessarily getting the certificate, employing ongoing
energy services, retrofitting existing buildings and in the demand for
high-performance homes.
"If you start smart ... a green building doesn't have to cost more,"
said Mary Laurie, sustainable initiatives director at Nabholz
Construction Corp. of Conway. But it takes an integrated team."
Having architects, engineers, contractors and interior designers work
together from the start of a project results in a variety of ways to
save that don't have additional upfront costs and
can vastly improve the energy efficiency of a building. One example:
the orientation or siting of a building.
Choosing to elongate a building, orient it in an east-west direction
on the property and put most of the glass on the north and south sides,
where it doesn't get direct sunlight, uses a method of design called
passive solar. This not only takes advantage of natural light, but uses
solar energy to retain heat in the winter and reflect it back in the
summer, said Clint Whitley, a certified architect and the sustainability
coordinator at Cromwell Architects Engineers Inc. of Little Rock.
Even an interior designer's choice of a light paint color to reflect
light can help decrease the lighting load on a building and make a
difference in the energy required for ventilation because lights throw
off heat.
"Sustainability is all about teamwork," Whitley said. "Small
decisions on the front end can have huge repercussions throughout the
building."
Certifiable but No Certificate
Green building may once have been considered a fad, but with energy
efficiency the goal, industry leaders agree that sustainable building
practices are here to stay whether they come with a Leadership in Energy
& Environmental Design certificate or not.
"It's at the heart of the way we build buildings. We choose
sustainable elements whether or not the project is seeking
certification," said Bill Hannah, CEO of Nabholz Construction Services
of Conway.
As interest in energy efficiency continues to grow, owners are
considering life-cycle cost breakdowns and asking for the upgrades they
know will save them money in the long run, even though they may cost
more upfront.
But, Laurie said, she asks herself, How many people are going to be
willing to pay the extra money it takes to get a LEED, Green Globe or
one of the many other certifications when they could instead put that
money into additional sustainable elements in their building?
Whitley said, "There is additional cost for the management of it [a
LEED project], but in general the buildings that we do probably would
achieve LEED certification just by default."
Unfortunately, he said, some people treat LEED like a checklist
because the process includes a list of points to check off. Ideally,
Whitley said, a project should be designed holistically. "What really
matters and what is really going to have an impact on this project," he
said, should be more relevant than certification.
"LEED has been fantastic in getting the industry to change," Whitley
said. "Now, codes are starting to catch up. States are starting to
introduce green building codes; even our state is starting to embrace
this idea. And as these states, organizations and cities start to adapt
these green practices as a norm, I think in a perfect world LEED goes
away and it just becomes what we do because it's good design."
Ongoing Energy Services
Some companies that build high-tech, energy-efficient buildings don't
necessarily have to keep engineers on staff to
maintain their systems and keep them running in tip-top shape.
Companies such as Cromwell offer ongoing energy services, monitoring
existing building systems and tweaking them for optimum efficiency.
Last year, Heifer International, one of the state's beacons of
sustainable building, experienced some reliability and efficiency
problems with the 9-year-old systems at its Little Rock headquarter. The
nonprofit commissioned Cromwell's energy services department to take a
look under the hood and make some adjustments. "It's just like a car:
It's going to need a tune-up," Whitley said.
Now, as part of the ongoing energy services, Cromwell's office
monitors a computerized "dashboard" with user-friendly graphic displays
of information about Heifer's ventilation and hot, chilled and gray
water systems.
Other energy services include building simulations and energy
modeling, which calculates estimated energy use for different systems,
energy audits, building testing for air tightness and indoor air quality
as well as thermal imaging to locate where insulation may be lacking.
Retrofitting Existing Buildings
Building a new building isn't the only way to go green. Industry
leaders agree that there has been a shift from constructing new green
buildings to making energy-efficient improvements in the HVAC systems,
insulation, lighting and windows in existing buildings in Arkansas.
Nabholz recently completed a major renovation of the Federal Building
at 1111 Main St. in Conway and is pursuing its first LEED certification
for the core and shell of an existing building.
"Some interesting aspects of this project: It had asbestos that had
to be remediated," Laurie said. "And, get this: It was built in 1969
without a single bit of insulation. We've had to go back in and build
onto the insides of the walls to be able to put in insulation. We've
also replaced all the single-pane windows with low-e energy- efficient
windows." Low-e means low emissivity, which refers to a coating on the
glass that helps control the amount heat transferred by sunlight.
Builders can add all the expensive alternative energy systems like
geothermal or solar panels they want, but most often in existing
buildings, retrofits to heating, ventilation and air- conditioning
systems, insulation, lighting and windows are what make sense.
"In heating or cooling, sometimes it doesn't matter what the energy
source is; you have to think of all the components together for high
efficiency," said Hannah. "It's a combination of all platforms. In and
of itself you may not achieve what you want out of an alternative energy
system. Overall what you are looking for is efficiency."
Many of the trends in commercial building are making their way to
residential building as well. The reason to buy a green home is the same
as it is for commercial structures: energy efficiency.
According to a McGraw-Hill Construction study of residential
builders, 83 percent said a focus on energy efficiency was what made
green homes built today more environmentally friendly than they were two
years ago. And green home building has doubled nationwide in just three
years from 8 percent In 2008 to 17 percent in 2011.
"There has been a shift away from green for the sake of being green
to core principal of energy efficiency," said Keith Wingfield, owner of
River Rock Builders in Little Rock.
"People assume from an energy-efficiency standpoint that all new
homes are created equal - and nothing could be further from the truth,"
he said. "My challenge as a builder is to build the most
energy-efficient [structures] for the least dollars."
Products alone are not necessarily the answer, he said. However,
understanding what they do and not overdoing it can make a difference.
Using a combination of polyurethane spray foam insulation and less
costly cellulose insulation is a good example of how to get the most
energy efficiency for your money, Wingfield said. Because the
polyurethane foam expands and provides a good air seal, using 1 inch of
it will work to provide the seal, and to provide the insulating
thickness needed he uses the cheaper cellulose.
Keeping insulation at the right depth and ensuring air and moisture
barrier joints are taped are low-tech but important practices, Wingfield
said. Other methods he employs in the quest for energy efficiency
include using infrared cameras to find gaps in insulation and building
envelope pressure tests to check for air tightness. Both practices are
similar to those offered as part of ongoing energy services for
high-tech energy-efficient commercial green buildings.
Wingfield also conducts duct-blast tests to determine the percentage
of leakage in a newly installed HVAC system. Some new systems can have
30 percent leakage, which isn't good because the system may never shut
off or may require a larger system to compensate for the leaking. There
will always be some leakage, he said. But when conducting the duct-blast
test, Wingfield said, he looks for less than 10 percent leakage to
achieve energy efficiency, though he often can reduce leakage to 5
percent.
Choosing to make $10,000 worth of energy-efficient upgrades can
create a high-performance home and the costs will be recouped in energy
savings in just a couple of years, he said.
On the Horizon
* Biomimicry design: Be on the lookout for more architectural and
engineering designs that mimic nature. Many of the systems found in
nature are highly efficient, and more and more people are looking to
nature for innovative commercial applications. A 2010 study of
biomimicry commissioned by the San Diego Zoo estimates that by 2025 it
will account for 10 percent of industry sales in the architectural,
engineering and related services.
* Electrochromic glass: Using very low levels of electricity,
electrochromic glass can be darkened with the flip of a switch or
through an automated system. Sage, a Faribault, Minn., company that
manufactures the glass, claims on its website that the glass can shrink
a building's HVAC requirements by 25 percent and lighting costs by up to
60 percent.
* Photovoltaic glass: Solar cells integrated directly into a
traditional looking windowpane replace the need for unsightly rows of
solar panels with the emergence of photovoltaic glass. An international
company called Onyx Solar is winning accolades for its cutting-edge work
with this new product.
Copyright Arkansas Business Jul 23, 2012
(c) 2012 Arkansas Business. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights
Reserved.
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