What’s up with all these tubes?

Tubes!

The tubes are conduit runs through the foundation.  This is a photo of the concrete forms.  Concrete will be poured into the forms to create the foundation walls.  The tubes provide a chase for things to be run up into the unit – wires, pipes, etc.

Seems like a lot of tubes, right?  We have a lot going on in these units – regular stuff like water pipes and electricity, but in our case ground source piping, extra wires for the solar panels…and who knows what else?  So we have a lot of tubes.

Concrete forms are typically sprayed with diesel oil to allow the form boards to come easily away from the forms once the concrete has dried.  Check out this short video of Nick Nied of Ichijo USA discussing the recycled fry oil we used instead!

The Zero Energy Idea House, built in Bellevue by green building pioneers Riley and Donna Shirey, opens today to much fanfare.

This home, which will be the Shirey’s personal residence, is exactly what it says it is – it provides ideas to the building and home buying audiences for advanced energy saving technologies which are part of a potential zero energy strategy.  It includes such advanced technologies as structural insulated panels, (R-24 walls, R-40 roof), solar hot water heating, LED lighting, a reverse chiller for heating, a helical wind turbine, and a 2.5 kwh photovoltaic panel array.  The combination of all these technologies will most certainly help the house get much of the way to zero net energy usage – resulting in one of the most advanced homes built regionally to date from an energy standpoint.  The WSU Energy Program projects the home will have net energy bills of about $500 a year, quite an achievement.  I suspect given how green the Shirey’s are, they are likely to do even better than this in actual usage.

Installing the structural insulated panels

As wholistic green builders, the Shireys have also included a number of other cutting edge green components.  Extensive green roofs and native landscaping will help reduce the roof rainwater runoff.  A 3,000 gallon rainwater cistern provides irrigation.  Lots of neat green materials, like FSC floors, recycled plate glass counters, and concrete countertops show green homes can be incredibly beautiful.

I have had the pleasure of knowing the Shireys for a number of years.  They own and run Shirey Contracting, located here in Issaquah, WA.  They are true green building pioneers, and were some of the first builders regionally to draw the important connection between building and sustainability.  They have been builders for several decades and were early users of structural insulated panels, which can result in tight, energy efficient walls and quick construction timelines.  Donna was instrumental in starting Built Green, the green building program for King and Snohomish Counties.  In addition to the Idea House, the Shireys are also building a home in Florida which will be LEED platinum – two truly cutting edge homes.

A great 13 minute educational video of the home was made by King County GreenTools – don’t miss it.  Also, the Zero Energy Idea House will be open Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Nov. 8 for self guided tours.  It is most definitely worth checking out – it is a truly inspiring home.

Rainwater system team in action!

Last week we brought parts of the design and permitting teams together to work through the final details of the rainwater catchment system. It is one of the very last details to be resolved prior to approval of the building permits. I thought the discussion was an interesting example of process and evolution in the design process. Participating were Dennis Rominger, Howland Homes project manager; Mark Weirenga, project architect from David Vandervort Architects; John Minato, City of Issaquah Building Official; Sylvia des Rochers, City of Issaquah plans examiner; Doug Schlepp, City review engineer; Mark Buehrer, system design engineer with 2020 Engineering; and myself.

The design team proposed a very simple, elegant system for rainwater recycling. Water from the roofs flows into a gutter and downspout and then directly into a cistern (one for each home). Rainwater is then pumped into the homes, where it is placed in a pressure tank, where it then is used in toilets and clotheswashers (I am skipping over many details which will be covered in a later post). In the event that the tanks run dry (unlikely, but possible during a very dry summer) they could be manually refilled by the residents with a hose.

The permit review team’s comments focused mainly on health and maximizing water conservation. To maximize the safety of the system, the design team proposed plumbing the potable and rainwater systems completely separately, so that non-potable water would not be cross contaminated with non-potable water. But to be completely belt and suspenders in terms of safety, the permit team suggested a number of additional measures. First was a backflow prevention device on each unit’s individual water line, so that in the unlikely event that someone at a future date replumbed the homes and mistakenly connected the potable and non-potable systems, that contamination could never enter into the public system. Second, routing of the lines will be done carefully so that potable and non-potable lines are not adjacent. Furthermore, non-potable lines will be clearly labelled at frequent intervals that it is non-potable water.

A lot of attention was given to the refill process for the cistern. The permitting team was concerned that during drought refill, that the hose might be tossed into the cistern, and that however unlikely, a backflow might occur, pulling non-potable water from the cistern into the hose and into the potable system (of course, a very rare occurance). There was also concern that residents might leave the hose running longer than necessary and fill the entire cistern with potable water, rather than a small amount needed to tie the resident over to the next rainfall. Initially the permitting team suggested an automated refill system that would add potable water into the system when it ran low. An air gap would be provided on the refill, to ensure non-potable water couldn’t be syphoned into the potable system.

However, the design team didn’t like the potential of that system breaking down, and also didn’t like the hands off feeling of the automated system – they wanted the residents to be in touch with their system, at least to some degree. So both teams synergistically developed a new idea – a timed manual refill from within the homes, plumbed with an air gap into the downspout system. Physically, it will be impossible for non potable water to be syphoned into the potable system. And the timer will ensure that refilling is limited to that needed for a couple of laundry loads. It is nearly a simple as the original design, keeps the residents connected to their water supply, is more convenient, and addresses some potential health risks (albeit, very low likelihood ones).