Home design: Partly green with a hint of sunshin
Tip-toeing to the tipping point of sustainable buildings and a solar future. That’s one way to describe current activity in local construction.
While most homes and commercial buildings constructed over the past few years rarely go above mandated codes for energy efficiency, some daring developers are pushing the envelope.
Taking risks. Using innovative building practices. Sketching the promise of near-Zero Energy construction for the Georgia coast.
“I’m a plant man.” That’s not only a definition of himself, it also defines Gregg Bayard’s philosophy. A burly former forester and horticulturist, comfortable under a fine patina of dust from a roadway under construction, he and his business partner Curry Wadsworth, with 20 years experience as a landscaper, are turning a heavily wooded, former fishing camp on Salt Creek into a housing development overlooking — and preserving — the marsh.
But not just any development. Barbour Pointe, limited to 36 of a potential 56 home sites, promises to be a model for a sustainable, conservation-oriented community on our ecologically fragile coast.
“Tree preservation was a top priority,” says Bayard, “and we wanted to preserve site hydrology with a low impact development.”
The roadway snakes its way around trees.
“We surveyed 250 trees with over a 14-inch diameter, breast height. And,” he says proudly, “we only needed to take out six trees.”
Six to eight feet under the roadway is the largest unified geothermal installation in the area. “At that depth,” explains Joseph Christiansen, president of Geothermal Energy Management, “the temperature of the earth remains at a constant year-round 68 degrees.”
Three parallel loops of water-filled plastic pipe will tie into each house creating an energy efficient system that reduces both heating in winter and cooling in summer.
“Between the geothermal for the development and EarthCraft certified construction for each home, I anticipate that a 1500-2000 square foot home would cost $1 a day to heat and cool,” says Bayard.
All utilities are also placed under the roadway, consisting of pervious pavers to reduce storm water run-off. “As the water soaks into the ground, we don’t have to build curbs or install storm drains,” notes Bayard.
While extensive tree cover may reduce the possibility for extensive use of solar panels on each house, a shed to be built next to the dock will provide 6000 kilowatt hours a year of solar electricity, enough to offset 27 street lights and lighting for common areas and a small pavilion.
From marshland to the urban core architects are “going green”.
“Reduction of energy demand,” stresses Jerry Lominack, of Lominack Coleman Smith, is an integral part of new construction. A major project underway, Frogtown Urban Lofts, just off Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. and the onramp to I-16, encapsulates much of what it means to “go green”.
Developed for the same client that built the LEED Gold Starland Lofts, the structures that comprise 39 units are framed with 8-inch thick concrete panels, manufactured locally. Each panel has 4 inches of reinforced concrete, topped with 2 inches of rigid insulation and capped with 2 more inches of reinforced concrete.
“While the typical R-value (a measure of insulation) under building codes is 13, ours is over 30,” says Lominack.
Other features: energy efficient window glass, high efficiency heat pumps, dual flush toilets, load bearing masonry walls, hollow core floor system, on demand hot water, compact fluorescent lighting, Energy Star appliances. The buildings are essentially non-combustible.
“We can reduce the need for energy just in the way windows are oriented, as well as better planning, better design, alternate sources of energy.”
The buildings will have 9,000 square feet of vegetated green roof, pervious parking areas and paving, which, in conjunction with a small drainage swale, exceeds requirements for storm water runoff.
“The green roof systems protect the roofing membrane – meaning longer life for the roof — and provides a 30 to 40 percent cooling effect on internal space,” say Lominack. While there is no immediate plan for solar photovoltaics, there is enough additional roof space to add panels later.
The firm has been active in preservation work for years. “Adaptive reuse is a green kind of thing to do, and I am amazed at how durable and adaptable the buildings are,” Lominack says.
Some renovations of existing buildings in the Historic District go beyond Corian countertops and new kitchen cabinets to incorporate many energy saving techniques.
Alex Grikitis, renovator/builder and a realtor with Judge Realty, the first eco-brokerage in Savannah, is turning a six-unit building on Troup Square into five LEED certified condos. Some of the features include using a soy-based spray–on insulation in the attic, all energy efficient lighting and appliances, 3M insulating film on windows.
A new roofing system uses a reflective felt that yields a 15 percent reduction in heat gain. A high-tech Smart Home controller regulates the range of heating and cooling for the entire building, while allowing individually adjustable zones in each unit. Roof mounted solar panels are also planned.
However, it was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that propelled Grikitis to his latest, and most ambitious, project. Ridgeland Plantation (in Ridgeland, S.C.) is billed as a “positive contribution to the environment.” It will be launched with the construction of six model houses on 3.5 acres to be followed by 123 homes on 58 acres.
Grikitis started renovations while a senior preservation major at SCAD. He convinced teachers and fellow students to completely renovate a house in Ardsley Park as a class project. He and his wife, Maggie, went on to restore 13 houses, with his father acting as equity partner.
Over the course of these restorations “my dad helped me put together a team.” When Hurricane Katrina left New Orleans-based architect Nurthan Goturk without a home, he was added to the team. And it was Hurricane Katrina that introduced Grikitis to modular homes
Modular homes are built indoors, almost factory style, off-site. They come in sections with completed windowed walls, interior walls, and kitchen and bath units, and are trucked to, and assembled on, the building site. A regional modular home manufacturer can complete seven houses a week. They are all built to local building codes and can be customized. Ridgeland Plantation will feature 12 different models, “five from the manufacturer and seven of our design,” says Grikitis.
Grikitis anticipates LEED certification and plans to have his houses certified green out of the factory. Exterior walls, for example, will use 2×6 framing lumber, instead of the typical 2×4s. That allows for extra insulation, and provides 135 mile-per-hour hurricane wind resistance. Soy-based insulation will be sprayed into the walls and attic. A Smart Home system, allowing computer control of heating, air conditioning, lighting and appliances will also be built in.
Each house will have its own vertical loop geothermal system. Roads and driveways are made of limestone-based pervious paving, and brick sidewalks replicate the pattern in the nearby town center.
One of the most ambitious local projects, Sustainable Fellwood, seeks to achieve a housing development that is both affordable AND sustainable. It brings together some of the local leaders in sustainable development.
According to architect Forrest Lott of Lott+Barber, Fellwood Homes began as a Housing Authority development, operated and maintained as low income housing in a series of stucco over block duplexes. All the buildings were razed and the approximately 25-acre parcel just south of West Bay Street represents an opportunity, and a challenge.
“We really want to do this,” says Lott. “If there ever was an opportunity to try something different economically and environmentally, this is it. It’s a good test for better environmental design.”
The concept represents a new direction for affordable housing. “It features mixed income, mixed housing types – single family, multifamily, retail, townhouses – apartments over retail, some straight retail and a central landscaped commons.”
Moreover, its location, bounded on three sides by existing single-family homes, “puts it back into the community.”
Financing for the project will come from a number of sources, with government tax incentives playing an important role. However, as those funds are limited, “our application is in, but we won’t hear until September.”
The master developer, Melaver, Inc., brings in its expertise as a builder of LEED certified projects and has already filed an application for one of the initial LEED-New Development designations.
“We’re trying to find the best fit from old and new technologies; to lower the cost of running a multi-family house, thus raising the standard of living for the occupants,” says Lott.
Some of the goals: minimize site impact by retaining almost all of the existing trees, many over 60 years old; maximize passive building orientation; provide more day lighting through the alignment of doorways and the use of transoms; build well insulated, energy efficient structures.
They are also exploring geothermal systems, a gray water system, and possibly solar.
Energy efficiency is rapidly becoming a new marketing tool. Lott reports that at a recent meeting of the American Institute of Architects, with 24,000 attendees, “they are all now focused on sustainability.”
One local builder and developer, Anthony Register of Tidal Construction Company, Inc., aggressively promotes the energy savings of environmentally friendly Tidal Homes.
A big booster of expanding spray foam insulation, he claims it provides an airtight envelope – “like a Styrofoam cooler”.
He believes in sustainable building, and building methods “because it is the right thing to do.” All of his houses are brick clad, feature high efficiency heating and air conditioning, windows that reflect out 85 percent of ultraviolet rays, low wattage fluorescent lighting, and Energy Star appliances.
As a builder he also recycles on site. A portable grinder chews up masonry, wood, drywall, and even asphalt shingles, and turns them into EPA approved mulch. “We save the landfill,” he says. “Normally waste from a 3000-square foot house would fill four to five 30-yard dumpsters. Now we use one dumpster for six to eight houses.”
Register sees “good potential for solar. I see that price is coming down. I would be willing to try solar; it’s the up and coming thing. Most people like to conserve.” Extending and expanding existing tax credits, he believes, is key for more use of solar.
Local realtor Cora Bett Thomas says energy efficient development can give Savannah “another edge.”
“Buildings can be both energy efficient and very attractive. Buyers are wide open for information and education, and some of our projects in Savannah are at the forefront,” she says.
“By fall, or by the end of the year,” Thomas predicts, “builders are going to educate buyers about energy efficiency and the public will respond.”
source:http://www.connectsavannah.com
