'Green' building increasingly seen as more than 'freezing in the dark'

Enterprise, The, Jan 01, 2007 by Johnson, Frances

In the late 1970s, at the height of the oil supply crisis, President Jimmy Carter urged Americans, in a televised address, to follow his example and save energy. He sat in front of a fireplace, wearing a sweater, the thermostat turned down. Conservationists have been trying to shake that negative impression ever since.

"Conservation got this image that it basically means freezing in the dark," said Stephen Connor, a principal with Salt Lake City's Colvin Engineering.

Today, however, "green" building practices are more popular than ever and could be the rule rather than the exception before long.

"What designers are doing these days is saying you can still have a comfortable, healthy building that uses dramatically less energy," Colvin said.

Green construction is not new, said Ralph Stanislaw, principal with Archiplex Group, a Salt Lake City architectural firm, but interest has increased in the past five years or so. People are more aware of the impact indoor environments can have on their health, he said, and tragic events like Hurricane Katrina and the situation in Iraq are, "increasing awareness of the limits of our natural resources."

"When it starts hitting your pocketbook and you pay more for gas and there's unrest in an area that provides those resources, I think people start thinking of different ways to do things," Stanislaw said.

In 1998, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) released the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, a benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.

The LEED certification focuses on five key areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. Projects are registered and receive different credits within each category, ultimately earning a silver, gold or platinum certification depending on the number of credits bestowed.

Sustainable site development involves optimal orientation of the building on a plot of land, allowing for the best natural light and ventilation, Stanislaw said. It also includes not extending the building plans into any surrounding greenfield areas.

In Utah, approximately 70 percent of all building water is used outside, Connor said, so drought-tolerant landscaping is the best way to conserve water. Indoors, plumbing fixtures, including low-flow toilets and sinks, also help conserve water. Some building owners are even going so far as to install waterless urinals. And, though Salt Lake City is not one of them, some jurisdictions allow what is known as "gray water" usage, Connor said. Water that goes down the sink, for example, can be used for irrigation, and rainwater collected on the roof can be used to flush toilets.

Mechanical systems, including heating and cooling systems, use the most energy in every building, Connor said. In general, buildings consume roughly 40 percent of the energy in the country.

One green method often employed by Colvin Engineering is evaporative cooling, similar to a swamp cooler but better, more efficient and more effective. Evaporative cooling reduces the amount of time the cooling system is running, with the regular air conditioning coming on only when humidity reaches a certain point. In use at the new downtown Salt Lake City library and at One Utah Center, also in downtown Salt Lake, the system reduces air conditioning costs by 80 percent, Connor said.

Another system, used at the West Valley Cultural Celebration Center and in multi-purpose rooms throughout the Salt Lake school district, is called displacement ventilation. Cool, but not cold, air is delivered to the floor, where it drifts along much like a puddle of water, Connor said. Hot air from heat sources like computers and people rises above everyone's heads, and the cool air moves in to fill that spot. Especially useful in tall spaces, the system doesn't consume energy heating or cooling space that is unoccupied, such as the area above people's heads.

Radiant cooling, which Colvin Engineering is installing in the new Leonardo arts, culture and science center in downtown Salt Lake City, uses water instead of air to move heat or cold. Water, Connor said, is a more efficient and therefore a more cost-effective conductor.

There are also several different options when it comes to materials selection, including high-class, quality materials.

"Green doesn't have to be a house made out of old tires and Coke bottle windows," Connor said.

Recycled materials are certainly an option. More people are also moving to formaldehyde-free materials, Stanislaw said, as well as other materials that prevent "off-gassing"- the release of potentially harmful substances into the air from wall and floor treatments.

"I think in general there's more of an awareness that buildings can have an impact on our health," Stanislaw said.

There is also a push to use more local building materials, he said, which stimulates the local economy while decreasing the environmental harm done by longdistance trucking and hauling.