"Green" building and "sustainability" are certainly
buzzwords in today's world. We don't feel like today's
current construction paradigm can be sustainable, even with
the best of intentions, we make efforts to limit our
environmental footprint and improve client health while
building beautiful homes and workplaces for people. Please
view our links page for more greenbuilding
resources.
Company
Practices
Practices we
implement as a company to minimize our
impact.
1) Encourage clients
to build better designed, smaller, “greener”
houses, additions, and remodels.
2) Offer more sustainable options to replace industry
standard materials. If these options have a higher first
cost we attempt to provide either life-cycle analysis or
environmental analysis to determine if a
“green” product is the best product to use in
each situation.
3) Implement an effective job site recycling program. Our
reclamation rates vary considerably based on many
conditions, but we strive to recycle everything we can
while still managing costs. Often this can save money.
4) Consider our transportation impacts. We often use
biodiesel in our work trucks and try to promote a work
environment that encourages carpooling and bicycling.
5) We strive to continually educate employees and
subcontractors on best practices in the industry. This
includes both conventional and green technologies.
Sourcing
Criteria
The following is
our criteria for sourcing wood. Other materials we use a
similar sourcing priority hierarchy. Please ask if you have
any questions.
Ranked highest to lowest in order of preference:
1) Minimize
overall wood use through reusing existing building
structure or good construction strategy. In conventional
building we prefer to use “advanced framing”
and “Optimal Value Engineering” techniques to
minimize wood use and maximize thermal efficiency. In
timber framed projects we are open to using alternative
wall systems for enclosing the frame.
2) Wood reclaimed from the project. By deconstructing and
denailing wood, it can be stored and reused later in the
project.
3) Wood reclaimed from other projects. We have a solid
network of reclaimed wood suppliers that can supply us with
a variety of woods reclaimed from interesting and varied
previous uses. This is often material that is remilled
either in our shop or by the supplier. Beams from reclaimed
woods are also more stable and will exhibit less wood
movement and checking than newly harvested woods.
4) Wood harvested locally. This can be either urban wood
that has to be removed for other reasons or small
landowners that manage their land sustainably, but do not
have FSC certification.
5) FSC certified wood. We use EBS, Lumbermans, Parr and
others that offer certified product lines.
6) Commericially available products. The standard in the
industry.