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Wednesday, July 07, 2010

EcoBroker in Colorado spearheads MLS listing of green features of homes

About five years ago, CoStar began putting Energy Star and LEED status into listings for commercial real estate, so that brokers tasked with finding green real estate for clients could do so more easily. Now Ashby reports that she has spent that last couple of years being involved with development of a green building program and as one of my roles on that committee she took on the greening of the MLS system in the area. Now she can report that this was recently accomplished and it will now give sellers the advantage of identifying their features accurately. Buyers seeking energy efficiency and sustainable design will be able to have their agents better refine the search approach. Change is not easy but after much determination Ashby was pleasantly surprised with how it was finally implemented. There is also a glossary for those that want to learn more. Think of how the sales of green homes could accelerate if every EcoBroker made a similar effort to have the local Board of Realtors revise the MLS to include green features and attributes, along with the number of fireplaces, bathrooms and “elegant” dining rooms!

Posted by Jerry on 07/07/2010 at 02:21 PM

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Monday, July 05, 2010

Omega Center for Sustainable Living: The First to Achieve Living Building Status?

The OCSL is a new 6,200-square-foot facility that serves not only as a laboratory classroom but also as a wastewater filtration facility. The heart of OCSL is a hydroponic biological wastewater treatment system, the Eco Machine, located inside the 4,500-square-foot-greenhouse. The Eco Machine consists of anoxic tanks, constructed wetlands, lagoons, sand filters and large dispersal fields that can process up to 52,000 gallons of wastewater a day. The treatment process is primarily gravity-fed and requires minimal energy to operate. Purified water output is used for irrigation and toilet flushing throughout the campus.

OCSL is aiming for both LEED Platinum certification and designation as one of the first projects to meet the Living Building Challenge (LBC). A restorative or regenerative building approach, LBC projects go “beyond LEED” and generate as much or more water and energy than they use, returning any excess back into the landscape and into the grid.

LBC has 16 prerequisites that a “living building” must meet, of which two deal with water: The first specifies that all occupant water must come from “captured precipitation or closed-loop water systems.” The second requires that all stormwater and building water discharge are managed onsite. LBC projects must demonstrate not only that they meet the rating system’s 16 design and construction criteria, but also that meet the criteria during actual operations for at least one year.

The OCSL is helping to pave the way for net-zero water and Living Buildings to enter the building stock. Let’s hope that the wisdom of what works and what doesn’t, along with the enlightened insights from these pioneering projects, will be incorporated into many more projects.

Posted by Jerry on 07/05/2010 at 03:56 PM

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Finding the Payoff in Rainwater Harvesting

At the LEED Silver-certified Tacoma, WA, police vehicle maintenance facility, two 4,800-gallon culvert tanks collect rainwater and recycle it for toilet flushing. Courtesy of TCF Architecture, Tacoma.

Target Field, the new home of the Minnesota Twins, features an advanced rainwater harvesting and reuse system, the largest to date in professional
sports. Courtesy Wayne Kryduba.

The problem lies often in cost-benefit analysis of rainwater collection systems compared to most potable water prices, which are still quite cheap in the U.S. Using a ten-year cost analysis for a rainy U.S. climate, the rainwater collected over the ten years would cost approximately $4.55 per hundred cubic feet (CCF), which is higher than average water rates in most U.S. cities (but not necessarily higher than the highest-tier rates). The system wouldn’t quite pay for itself just with water savings because the added cost of extra plumbing to convey the water to the points of use hampers overall cost-effectiveness.

Although first-costs are higher than conventional systems, in new buildings rainwater collection systems could potentially eliminate expensive charges for storm-drain hookups, putting an owner “money ahead from Day One,” where the costs of savings are greater than the installation cost. In one project in which I was involved, just the cost of installing the storm drainage pipes to take water off the site and to connect to the town’s storm drains was greater than the cost of installing two 20,000-gallon tanks to hold runoff from the 100-year rainfall event and providing a treatment system that generates enough water for toilet flushing for a good part of the year. In addition, the use was for an academic building whose use pattern just about matched perfectly the annual rainfall cycle of the West Coast.

If seasonal and annual rainfall continues to be more erratic, water rationing and higher prices will be likely, making rainwater harvesting a rational economic response especially for large users. I harvest a few thousand gallons a year of rainwater at my house in southern Arizona, and I can tell you that nothing could be easier (or more sustainably satisfying) than using recycled rainwater for plant irrigation in a dry climate.

Posted by Jerry on 07/05/2010 at 03:49 PM

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Friday, July 02, 2010

Sewer Mining: Extreme Measure or Viable Solution?

6-Star Green Star-rated building, Council House 2 in Melbourne, Australia, pioneered an urban innovation, “sewer mining” of blackwater for treatment and reuse in buildings. Courtesy of the City of Melbourne.

A 9-story public office building, Council House Two (CH2) in Melbourne, Australia, implemented sewer mining with an in-house blackwater treatment system. Sewage extracted or “mined” from a sewer main located in the street near the building, along with wastewater produced in the building, is purified using a multi-water reuse (MRW) plant in the basement. The wastewater undergoes a micron-sized prescreening, ceramic ultra-filtration and finally reverse osmosis, which together purify it to a Grade-A drinking-water-quality standard.

The system processes more than 26,000 gallons of wastewater per day, and the effluent provides recycled wastewater for toilet flushing, a roof garden and other uses. The sewage treatment plant, coupled with a 5,280-gallon rainwater and fire-sprinkler-test water collection and storage tank onsite, supply 100 percent of CH2’s non-potable water.

There is plenty of water flowing in cities in the sanitary sewer system, so why not tap into it? Considering the increase in droughts, potential water supply shortages and the expense associated with transporting and treating water, sewer mining is an approach that could supplement current water supplies and help prevent a future urban water crisis. In fact, my engineering friends tell me that many new large office projects in Australia are incorporating sewer mining into their design as a viable approach to meeting water demands, especially from cooling tower make-up water.

Posted by Jerry on 07/02/2010 at 11:09 AM

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