GREEN BUILDING ARTICLES

2005-2007

Green building consistent with Co-op's vision
Paul Harton, General Manager, 2006

I am very pleased to announce that in early June BriarPatch Co-op’s new store was awarded LEED® certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The LEED Green Building Rating System is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings.

From the very beginning of the new store project everyone involved wanted the building to be consistent with the co-op’s vision of being a leader in environmental responsibility. We wanted a building that represented our values, and we wanted to set an example for the community about sustainable building practices. Calloway Development, owners of the property, along with architect Jeff Gold and contractor TruLine Builders, worked with BriarPatch toward our green building goal; we couldn’t have done it without them.

Early on we also decided that if we were going to build a green building we wanted it to be LEED certified. LEED certification is analogous to certified organic produce in that there is a third party verification process. With this in mind, we worked closely with USGBC to meet their criteria. After construction, UCGBC verified that all of the green features work as they were designed.

BriarPatch’s new store was designed by architect Jeff Gold and contractor TruLine Builders for efficient use of energy, lighting, water, and materials, and other sustainable strategies. Some of the features that earned our building “points” toward LEED certification are:
• extremely efficient lighting, including 12 large skylights
• heat from the refrigeration is recycled and used to heat the building
• a reflective roof that reduces solar heat retention
• building materials that have been recycled and are nontoxic.

These are just a sampling; to learn more about our LEED certified building, see our website or “Welcome to BriarPatch” flyers and the corresponding green building plaques throughout the store.

The Glass Plaque

LEED®: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

As part of LEED certification, BriarPatch received a glass plaque; U. S. Green Building Council strives to lessen the impacts of plaque fabrication by choosing a material, fabrication process, and delivery methods that have a smaller environmental footprint.

Material: The LEED plaques are made of recycled content glass, increasing the demand for recycled glass.

Fabrication: The plaques are cut, then sandblasted, not etched. This is less energy intensive than cast metal, and sandblasting does not involve the use of toxic chemicals that are part of the etching process.

Delivery: Our fabricator delivers the plaques directly to the certified project’s designated recipient, cutting down on the environmental costs of transportation.

BREAKING ANY HABIT TAKES EFFORT
Just ask Don Weller.
Throwing everything in a pile and eventually a dumpster - leftover concrete, piping, metal, sheetrock, etc. - has long been the habit of the construction industry. As Tru-Line Builders' point man on waste recycling for the BriarPatch/Litton building, Don has learned new habits.

For this project he kept several piles: wood, metal, concrete, sheetrock, wire, and plastic. Many of these materials are now recyclable right at the county "dump," otherwise known as the McCourtney Road Transfer Station. Recycling 75% or more of the construction waste will earn the project a point toward LEEDT certification, so whenever Don took a truckload there, he had to have the materials weighed and documented on a receipt. This request isn't business-as-usual yet, so Don found himself in the role of a one-man educational program as he explained why he needed receipts each time.

Don had to go further afield to recycle some materials. After a lot of calling around, the Tru-Line team found a sheetrock company in Marysville that recycles sheetrock scraps. It turned out that driving a truckload of sheetrock downhill to Marysville was cheaper than paying dumping fees at the transfer station.

Don even rounded up small but easily recyclable drink cans and bottles around the building site, and found that he had formed a new habit that extended into his home life: he started recycling waste at home, too!

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REDUCING POLLUTION - HEAT, AUTO, LIGHT
While much of the new store building progress is taking place indoors these days, new green features have also been added outside. Here are a few that you probably haven’t noticed.

Keeping cool
Part of building green is reducing temperature increases caused by solar gain on surfaces like roofs and parking lots. Shingles of a light color were chosen for the BriarPatch/Litton building’s roof in order to reflect more light and absorb less heat. For the same reason, the walls and floor of the roof’s “mechanical well” are painted entirely white. Invisible from ground level, this area hides various mechanical features from view, such as HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) equipment.
To reduce temperatures in the parking lot, trees will be planted in and around it. Once the young trees reach maturity, in about ten years, they’ll shade approximately half of the parking lot area.

Go carless
A bus stop is in place on Sierra College Boulevard, just up from the roundabout traffic circle. The LEED™ system awards a point to buildings located within a quarter mile of two or more bus lines, since access to public transportation allows for a reduction in pollution from private autos.

Light on light
Outdoor light fixtures are now installed in the new store parking lot . If they look a little different than other such lights you’ve seen, it’s because they’re specially made to reduce light pollution: to prevent ambient light and glare in the night sky, to protect the nocturnal habitat of animals, plants, and ecological processes, and to reduce energy consumption. The light fixtures have recessed bulbs and vertical shielding on all sides to make sure that no light is cast beyond the property line. Reflector lenses direct the light down and outward. To save energy, the outdoor lights will be activated by a light sensor system that will detect decreased ambient sunlight levels at dusk. A computerized timer system will automatically turn off these lights after the store closes in the evening.

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TRU-LINE WORKS HARD TO MEET WASTE DIVERSION GOALS
“If the McCourtney Transfer Station took everything, that’d be the cat’s meow. But it’s not that simple,” said Tim Brady, owner of Tru-Line Builders.

Brady has committed to recycling or diverting between fifty and seventy-five percent of the waste generated from construction of the BriarPatch Co-op/Litton Center building, helping to earn the project its “green” certification.

He and his on-site recycling point-man, Don Weller, are finding that recycling waste is sometimes easy, and sometimes not. For materials that can be recycled at the county Transfer Station it’s easy, as with waste lumber. But what about waste sheet rock, which will be one of the largest and heaviest scrap piles?

To help him figure out what to do with the waste recycling challenges and with documenting it all, Brady has hired a student from a construction project management program in Chico — Kevin Brady, his son. To recycle sheetrock, Kevin found a recycling center in Marysville. The Bradys calculate that it will be less expensive to truck the sheetrock waste to this center than it would be to pay local dumping fees. A local cement dealer agreed to accommodate Tru-Line and recycle the builders’ waste cement along with their own. A local metal fabricator has agreed to do the same with rebar waste.

Successes like these bolster the company’s optimism for meeting the next recycling challenge, which is never far off. Brady admits that, looking at crates full of cement, tile, glue, crushed caulking guns, and plastic straps, it sometimes seems it would be easier just to take a truckload to the dump.

He anticipates that the recycling will only get tougher as the project moves ahead. With the building “shell” nearly complete, it will soon be time to bring in numerous subcontractors for the building’s interior work — subcontractors who may be just beginning to learn about recycling their waste materials. Brady acknowledges a need for “management methods that are totally new to us.”

This is Tru-Line’s first attempt to recycle on this scale, yet in his typical, ambitious style, Brady has gone beyond the LEED goals and set an even higher company goal: to recycle a whopping ninety-five percent of the construction waste. Four months into the job, he’s now learning just how ambitious that goal is. Yet Brady remains determined — “The key is that it takes commitment. And recommitment. And recommitment.”

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NEW STORE GETS "GREEN" FOUNDATION
The new green building became much more concrete in July, when its foundation and floors were poured. A huge block of concrete may not sound like a green building feature, but this particular slab is made of twenty percent post-consumer recycled material: flyash. Flyash is a byproduct of coal-fired electricity generating plants. Using flyash in concrete diverts it from the waste stream while reducing the energy and virgin materials used and pollution created in processing cement.

Using flyash in the concrete makes a significant contribution to the quantity of post-industrial recycled materials used in the building, helping to earn a LEED program point or two for using five to ten percent recycled content materials overall.

But does the flyash compromise the soundness of the concrete? Quite the contrary. Flyash actually improves the performance and quality of concrete. It affects its “plastic properties” by improving workability and reducing water demand. Flyash reduces the concrete’s permeability, reduces corrosion of reinforcing steel, and increases its strength, reaching its maximum strength more slowly than concrete made with only Portland cement. On top of all this, it costs less than cement.

By the time the patios, curbs, and walks are the finished, the BriarPatch Co-op/Litton Center building will have replaced 1,020 sacks of cement with flyash. At 94 pounds each, that’s an offset of 95,880 pounds of cement.

General Contractor Tim Brady notes that using flyash in concrete is a win-win-win-win proposition: better product, less waste, less cost, cleaner air.

The use of flyash in the BriarPatch/Litton project may end up having a broad impact on the Nevada County building scene, spurring an increase its local availability and use. After seeing the BriarPatch/Litton concrete purchase go to a supplier who already had the equipment to mix flyash with cement, another local supplier is seriously considering also investing in the cement hopper needed for this product.

As Brady points out, “The greater possibility of any change to industry standards like these is the potential for influencing others to do the same, and magnifying your impact.”

BriarPatch, Calloway Development, and Tru-Line Builders’ commitment to the LEED process—green building—is beginning to make that impact.

Definition: Flyash is defined in Cement and Concrete Terminoloy as “the finely divided residue resulting from the combustion of ground or powdered coal, which is transported from the firebox through the boiler by flue gases.”

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GREEN DESIGN: Energy Reduction
The intent is to achieve a higher level of energy performance and energy efficiency than is required by the state — California — that leads the country in required [building] energy performance.” — Jeff Gold, BriarPatch Co-op new store architect

Certainly the time to reduce energy use has come, and BriarPatch’s new store building will reflect this ideal by cutting down on energy consumption in several ways —some standard, some cutting edge.

Heating and Cooling
First off, winter cold and summer heat will be kept out with six-inch insulated precast concrete walls, which have better “energy performance” than typical wood-framed walls. “We’re going another ten to fifteen percent beyond what’s required,” explains architect Jeff Gold. Gold also explains that the central heating and cooling system to be used will be fully programmable by zones, allowing for optimum efficiency.

Lighting
Lighting is typically one of the biggest energy users for grocery stores. BriarPatch is investing in windows, skylights, and high-efficiency fixtures that will significantly reduce the amount of energy needed to light the new store. The lighting was designed to provide natural light to all the working and occupancy areas, Gold says.

Twelve large ceiling skylights will be located above store departments including Produce, Bulk, Wellness, Deli, the checkout registers, and in the warehouse. In addition to the skylights, windows will cover 1,200 square feet of wall space — lighting the deli seating area, front end of the store, community room, and staff offices.

The light fixtures that will be used to supplement the natural light will be the highest efficiency lights made, according to Gold: T5 compact fluorescent fixtures. To get even more light from these fixtures, ceilings will be painted light colors to create more indirect light in offices, the deli seating area, and over the checkout registers. To reduce the use of electric lighting even further, the fixtures throughout the store will be controlled by sensors that turn them on and off automatically when people enter or leave rooms. “This is the cutting edge,” Gold says.

Refrigerator heat recapture
Probably the greatest energy users in grocery stores are the refrigerators and freezers. While there’s no way to avoid using them, BriarPatch will install a heat recapture system to use the excess heat from these essential appliances. These ingenious systems use the heat generated by the refrigeration compressors for two purposes. First, the heat is recaptured for hot water, heating twenty to thirty percent of the hot water for the store, including water for the deli kitchen. Secondly, refrigeration heat is utilized to help heat the store interior when it’s cold out.

Solar energy
Finally, we’ll continue to produce some of our own electricity by utilizing the sun. The solar panels on the roof of the current store will be moved to and used at the new store. Although the panels are able to generate only a small portion of the electricity we need, electrical wiring will be built into the new store to allow for future expansion: we’ll be able to add as many additional panels as the roof—and the budget—will allow.

“This really speaks to the heart of what BriarPatch is committed to doing with their store and this community,” Gold says of these extensive energy reduction measures. He points out that taking these steps shows how citizens can go beyond government energy policies in building. Gold has designed energy-efficient residential homes, but doesn’t know of any other commercial project in the county that has applied the same level of energy consciousness as is planned for the new BriarPatch. He expects to see more such buildings in the future, however: “As energy costs go up, it’s going to be something builders take into account more and more.”

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GREEN BUILDING: MATERIALS
Building “green” means building with recycled and renewable materials, and BriarPatch’s new store architect, Jeff Gold, has found some interesting new materials for countertops, cabinets, and flooring. At least ten percent of the materials used in the BriarPatch/Litton Center building will contain post-consumer recycled content.

Countertops
The primary material selected for countertops is “IceStone™,” a new product composed of 75% recycled glass crystals in a cement matrix. The IceStone™ may come from a new plant in nearby Oakland if the plant is ready by the time we place our order.

Office desktops in the new store will be made from fiberboard composed of 100% post-industrial, pre-consumer wood fiber, called Medite® II. Made in Oregon by Sierra Pine, this material is certified by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) for its recycled and recovered wood content. Medite®II has no added formaldehyde, so it doesn’t compromise indoor air quality by out gassing.

Cabinetry
The wood used for cabinetry in the new store will carry the Forest Stewardship Council (FCS; fsc.org) seal for having been cut in accordance with sustainable forestry practices.

Flooring
Flooring called Marmoleum,® made of renewable linseed oil from the flax plant, will be used in the office hallways. Carpeting in offices and meeting rooms, made by Lees, is a SCS-certified “Environmentally Preferable Product.” Lees Carpet meets standards for resource conservation, using renewable resources and a minimum twenty percent post-consumer recycled content. Lees also meets environmental standards for product manufacturing, product performance, and extended product responsibility, which means Lees will recycle their own carpets after use.
BriarPatch is also considering using insulation made from recycled blue jeans and a rubber flooring made from recycled tires in selected areas.

Contractor TruLine Builders is committed to recycling at least seventy-five percent of the construction waste.

Green for Green
“Green” materials often cost more than their more commonly used, more toxic counterparts. BriarPatch — along with Calloway Development — is committed to earning LEED “green” certification, but must be cautious about overextending our cooperative financially. Owners can help BriarPatch pursue our “green” goals by joining our “Green for Green” fundraising campaign. Fully-paid owners are invited to add $100 to their $200 “Fair Share” membership. Those who aren’t yet fully paid can pay their remaining membership balance. The capital from these payments will give BriarPatch a boost of “green” to use to purchase green materials for our store.

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GREEN BUILDING: On-site water retention
It's as basic as, well, the law of gravity. Whenever a new building or parking lot covers the earth, rain and snow that fall there will run downhill. Unable to soak into the earth as before, stormwater flows into drains that lead directly into creeks and rivers, bringing with it silt and pollutants from roofs and paved lots.In recognition of these problems, Nevada County and Grass Valley require that new construction sites be built to retain stormwater. The Litton Retail Center, BriarPatch's new location, is being designed not only to exceed these government requirements, but to serve as a model of attractive, useful techniques for keeping runoff out of the watershed.

Landscape architect Jo McProud is designing an ecologically sensitive water retention system, one that not only limits degradation of the natural watershed, but also creates viable habitat and open space.

McProud's plan includes swales and sand filters to slow runoff and allow it to percolate into the ground. A pond, or retention basin, will host different plants at different depths to filter the runoff naturally. Bottom-most levels will be wet most of the by Stephanie Mandel-Austin Native riparian tree species Native dryland tree species Retention basin & native demonstration garden, to be planted and maintained by community groups.time and planted with native riparian vegetation, while the higher and dryer levels and perimeter will be planted with native plants that are adapted to dry environments.

"What we're hoping to do is create a model," said McProud, explaining that the common rock-lined basins are often eyesores on the landscape. She believes that stormwater retention need not be ugly, and is enthusiastic about creating a space that is "healthy, beautiful, and inspiring for other property owners."

Also planned are a path, benches, and informational signs to educate people about the system.

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