Greenstreaming

Many builders discover that "green" techniques and products can extend happily to the bottom line.

Source: BUILDER Magazine
Publication date: 2002-01-23

"I just don't have to think about using a steel framing system. It's efficient, safe, fast," says Tucson, Ariz., builder Glen Kerslake. His company, ContraVest, built 88 homes in 2001, a company record. Kerslake is among the mainstream builders of all sizes who are "greenstreaming," adopting what used to be called alternative building techniques and systems. Now many of these products and systems are used so commonly, they've become part of the mainstream.

Traditional practices are starting to crumble, driven by consumers who are conscious of building envelope performance, indoor air quality (IAQ), mold, and environmental impact. Simultaneous and unrelated shifts in the labor force and the caprice of Mother Nature also conspire to undermine the status quo. Green building programs, whether voluntary, incentive-driven, or code-mandated, add leverage to the impetus for new building practices.

Whether the goals are to gain market share among "green" consumers or to end-run the no-growth lobby, more builders enter the stream every day. Many discover that "green" techniques and products can extend happily to the bottom line.

Change game

Doing it the old way just isn't working. It's all too easy for simple sealing or insulating mistakes to let air and accompanying moisture leak into traditional stick-frame wall systems. Condensation creates serious rot and mold problems. Uncontrolled structural leaks also reduce energy efficiency. (And some unchecked tradesman keeps making holes in the oddest places.)

Builders of all sizes are adapting new construction practices: changing material selection and technology, project management techniques, and jobsite practices. These converts fall into two schools: those who respond piecemeal to immediate needs, and those who are convinced they confront a new strategic environment. It is not at all uncommon for members of the first group, who assert that they are not using alternatives, to realize they already depend on engineered lumber, vinyl-clad windows, and pre-fabricated trusses.

Minnesota builder Todd A. Bjerstedt has only recently come to realize that some of the material and building practice changes his company embraced are part of the green picture. "We take baby steps," Bjerstedt says, "and move into change fairly slowly." McDonald Homebuilding Collaborative in River Grove Heights, Minn., builds 25 to 30 homes a year in its two divisions--custom home and townhome. Bjerstedt is vice president of the collaborative and president of the townhome division.

A 10-year state warranty statute motivates Minnesota builders to build in a way that maintains reputations and avoids costly callbacks. Some materials do cost more, but Bjerstedt says choosing more costly but more durable materials can be balanced. "It's pay me now or pay me later," he says.

Company innovation began in the mid-'80s with engineered floor joists, because the deteriorating quality of dimensional lumber resulted in callbacks. However, the new product met with buyer resistance. In those days buyers thought the joists looked inadequate and wondered aloud why a good builder would use such cheap stuff in a quality house, Bjerstedt says.

The company had to educate its consumers. Fortunately the joist companies also began to educate consumers. Today, McDonald home prices hover around $500,000, ranging from $350,000 to $1,000,000.

Four or five years ago, McDonald began using oriented strand lumber (OSL) for window and door frames and in kitchens. The engineered product is straight, true, and dimensionally stable. Trim around the doors fits flat and stays flat. In particular, the dimensional stability means "that kitchen counters stay against the wall after installation," Bjerstedt says.

The company's latest departure from tradition once again has been driven by frustration with the traditional product. Now McDonald is replacing wood with fiber-cement siding.

Moisture monsters

More builders might be motivated to change old practices if they could see inside their walls. Infrared photography of typical new homes shows just how energy inefficient stick frame can be. Infrared (or thermal) photography reveals temperature differences in construction that indicate where conditioned air is escaping or the weather is sneaking in.

These pictures reveal dark truths about building construction. Infrared photos taken by Arizona's State Energy Office and Pittsburgh-based IBACOS, one of U.S. Department of Energy's Building America consortiums, show how and where heat and cold infiltrate buildings, undermining the efficiency of even well-engineered and heavily insulated houses--houses that also passed careful building inspection.

Orientation station

Al Nichols of Al Nichols Engineering in Tucson, Ariz., is an energy consultant to Tucson's pioneering green building development, The Community of Civano. He notes that many involved in green building argue that the only truly effective house is a passive solar oriented house, in which the concentration of glass faces south. Properly designed passive solar in most climates does reduce winter heating and summer cooling needs. "However," Nichols adds, "a well-constructed house built to Civano's standards varies its energy use by only 5 percent when oriented other than south," making total envelope performance the key factor, not the home's siting.

"The real number," Nichols says, "is that it adds 3 percent or less to hard costs to reduce energy consumption by almost 10 percent. The Civano code calls for R-38 roofs, R-19 walls, and double-paned glass. Just those construction improvements make the houses 15 percent to 20 percent more efficient. Well-installed, low-E, double-paned windows make a big difference in energy use for three reasons. First, they reduce leakage; second, the windows in themselves are more energy efficient [0.32 U vs. 1.13 U for a single-paned window--in U numbers, lower is better]; third, solar coatings and low-E reduce the effect ofdirect solar gain through the glass."

The big three

It is easy to find, purchase, and install energy-efficient windows. Now builders are beginning to ask for more foolproof wall systems--ones that keep moisture out of wall cavities and install easier and faster. The three wall-framing alternatives most favored by successful greenstreamers are steel, structural insulated panels (SIPs), and insulating concrete forms (ICFs).

In Hawaii, the mini but mighty Formosan termite attacks with mandibles that drill cinder block, and pierce copper and plastic pipe. And that's just to reach the wood, which it consumes seven times faster than other termites. As a result, "56 percent of Hawaii's new-home construction is now steel frame," says Karen T. Nakamura, executive vice president of Hawaii's BIA.

Hawaii-based Schuler Homes (expected to merge with Texas-based D.R. Horton by the end of this month) has been using steel framing for nine years in major subdivisions in Hawaii and now in California.

In Tucson, Kerslake's firm ContraVest builds with both stick and steel frame, including the Heydon Building System (which encapsulates and insulates steel structurals within thick foam panels). At its upscale Vactor Ranch community, Kerslake says he built all the homes using the Heydon steel frame system. "It is on the cutting edge of new technology," he says.

Across the Southwest, thick adobe walls have buffered interiors from 40-degree daily temperature swings. Thick walls also lure affluent buyers with irresistible aesthetic appeal. Now builders are shifting from labor-intensive adobe and masonry to ICFs. Ron Jones of Sierra Custom Builders in Placitas, N.M., and Edward Fedoruk of Carefree, Ariz., and are fans of Rastra.

Greenstreaming continued