Here are a few of the questions that come up frequently for us. If you have others, please e-mail us at info@commonfire.org and we'll add the most popular here.
Where can I find more detailed information on green products, green building strategies, and green building in general?
One of the most comprehensive resources is certainly
Environmental Building News and GreenSpecs.
The National Resources Defense Council has a very business-minded website that helps to make the business case for green building and provides tops on "capitalizing" on your green building for PR purposes.
Greenerbuilding.org has a free and easy-to-browse list of green products.
You can also find lots of tips specific to peole who are going to be constructing a new building or would like to green their existing building in these brochures. NOTE: They are large files. They take a minute on high-speed internet.
Which LEED points did the Common Fire Co-op score?
Click here to see an Excel spreadsheet listing the points we scored.
How much did the Common Fire building cost, and how much more does green building cost in general?
The Common Fire building was custom built for about $975,000, for a cost of right around $270/sf. This is the cost before discounts and donations of materials
(which most people couldn't expect to receive). The cost includes appliances and the well (which provides the water for the geothermal heating and cooling system as well as drinking water, so it seemed fair to count it). It does not include the cost of the large (12.9kw) solar electric system, which would cost about $50,000 after incentives from New York State, and it does not include the septic system (which required fill and a pump).
Green building can actually cost the same or less than regular building, or it can cost more. It depends on the choices you make when "greening" your building. We have two brochures available that provide a range of green tips that are broken into three categories, things that cost the same or less, things that cost more up front but save money over time, and things that cost more and won't save you money, but you should do them anyway.
For example, designing the smallest building that will meet your needs can save massive amounts of money and time and resources. Installing a solar electric system can cost a lot more money up front but it will pay you back in savings in 8-10 years after which you get free electricity for the life of the system (upwards of 30 years). Buying all FSC-certified wood may cost you 20% more on wood costs.
A 2003 study sponsored by the state of Massachusetts showed that the added cost of building according to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards was less than 2 percent, but the financial benefits 10 times that amount due to less energy and water use, waste production and maintenance costs. The study estimated that such buildings were, on average, 25 to 30 percent more energy-efficient and said other studies conservatively suggested that worker productivity in LEED buildings was
higher by at least 1 percent.
Our experience is that green building does indeed cost more money, if only for the reason that most people are just not that familiar with it, so there is a cost in time. It takes either a degree of familiarity with and support for green building by the owner, architect, builder, suppliers and subcontractors. Every time one of these players is not familiar with something or not really that supportive of it, it requires taking some extra time to get them on board and comfortable with it. Of course this cost will decline as green building becomes the norm, and some of the greener options are already becoming pretty mainstream, but for now it is indeed an additional cost that we want to make sure people take into account.
How, and where, did you seek out funding for the building?
This project benefited tremendously from a major contribution of over $100,000 from the founders who donated most everything they had. That money plus a private loan got us to the point where we were able to buy the land. The land was in turn used as collateral towards securing a construction loan.
Finding anyone who would work with us was very challenging. Finally we found the Cooperative Fund of New England, a non-profit that provides loans to cooperative ventures. They couldn't touch the amount we needed to do the whole job, but they committed to loaning us up to $350,000. That amount, plus their obvious confidence in us was just what we needed to raise the comfort level of our local credit union, the Mid Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union. They committed to loaning the rest of what we projected we would need -- $730,000. Their terms were actually better than the CFNE's so we went with the majority from them and only $230,000 from CFNE.
There are four others key pieces to the puzzle.
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Through the New Construction program they provided about $21,000 toward energy efficiency and "green" features of the building, as well as an incentive to pay for our designer/architect and matching funds toward the building modeling and commissionsing. Through the PV program, we got about 60% of our solar system paid for. And through the Loan Fund we got an interest rate reduction on our loans through the CFNE and MHVFCU. Specifically the Loan Fund bought down our interest rate by 4% for ten years. The value of that will approach $100,000.
Sponsorships. We benefited tremendously from donations and discounts on products and labor from people who supported our vision. And we reserved 10 official "sponsorships" for companies that stepped up and made significant donations (multiple thousands of dollars or more) in exchange for heightened attention on our website, in news releases, etc.
Sale of Land. We sold two lots contiguous to the one we built on (after subdividing). We put official deed restrictions on them that they have to build green and most of the land needs to be left undisturbed. This attracted the kind of people who are generally interested in living sustainably themselves, and gave us an important infusion of cash.
Donations. Of course everything went over budget, even more than the buffer we had included. So we had to do a LOT of fundraising from individuals. And they really came through for us, to the tune of more than $100,000.
At this point the co-op is self-funding with the residents sharing the cost of covering the monthly mortgage payments and repairs.
How did you assemble the requisite contractors and builders to attain a "green" building?
The most critical step was finding the right initial partners. Once they were in place everything else came relatively easily. We were blessed to have a good friend and committed colleague (Jesse Selman of Small Farm Builders) who was not only competent to be a foreman for the crew and active participant in the design process, but also helped us find the two other critical people in the process.
One was the designer, Chuck Silver of Hudson River Design. He is super knowledgeable and deeply experienced in green building. We hadn't originally planned to pay someone to design the building for us. Design/architect costs are significant. We decided to pay more for someone with a lot of experience as opposed to a couple people who were excited about the project but inexperienced. It was absolutely the right call for us and made all the difference -- saving us a lot of time (which was an intensely scarce commodity throughout the process) and allowed us to take the project to a higher level than we had ever originally imagined.
The other person was the construction manager, Doug Hoffman of Eco-Con Building systems. He was not very experienced with green building, and in fact had never constructed a whole building before. But he had a broad range of construction experience, a powerful desire to have the focus of Eco-Con be green building, and he had some of the basic management skills we needed. And perhaps most importantly, he had a real passion for the project and was ready to have tough conversations. Early discussions about money and salary, etc., gave us a good sense of who he was and how we would be able to communicate with him as we faced challenges throughout the project.
Certainly we at Common Fire did a lot of research ourselves, but with the right people on board in these key positions we were always able to identify and connect with the other necessary people/companies we needed along the way.
Who are the contractors and builders?
All of the materials we used are listed on the "Details for Builders" page, and a few of the significant contractors that we recommend are on there as well at the bottom of the page.
What was the timeline between the original conception of the idea for building and completion of the building?
Broadly speaking there was about a year+ from concept to securing land, another year of design and getting all the permits, etc. lined up, and a year+ of construction. So about 3.5 years.
Could you recommend a green building training course for contractors or folks who want to build for themselves?
We do not know of a green building training per se that is for contractors. However there are a lot of resources out there.
With all due respect, the single best overview of green building on the web is the Common Fire website. We'll stop saying it when someone finds one that's better. Hasn't happened yet.
For folks somewhat new to building the weeklong design/build workshop at Yestermorrow comes highly recommended. It has a strong focus on sustainability and is very enjoyable and educational.
For an established contractor looking to gain knowledge on material choices, products and building techniques -- subscribe to Environmental Building News and buy access to their website and GreenSpec listing. By far the best reference available.
There are increasingly more and more day-long and two day-long conferences in the region with different panels on aspects of green building:
- The annual NESEA (Northeast Sustainable Energy Association) conference (in 2007 will be March 13-15) is wonderful, and their website has some good info.
- The USGBC has its annual GreenBuild conference as well (in 2007 it will be in Chicago from Nov. 7-9).
There are a couple of regional listservs for people with interest in green building to get notifications about a whole range of these kinds of conferences in the area, as well as about all the different workshops that are offered in the area usually around specific aspects of green building. In recent months there have been ones on different kinds of insulation, solar panel installation, passive solar design, etc. And sometimes there are speakers who are involved in different green building projects.
For the Hudson Valley region, these two lists are a good place to start:
- Manna Jo Green's events calendar. Write to her at mannajo@aol.com and ask to receive her e-mail calendar of events. Her calendar has to be the most extensive in the area for environmental-related events.
- Sustainable Hudson Valley's e-mail list. Write to info@sustainhv.org. SHV is a hub for a lot of sustainability work going on in the area. They have a green building group that meets periodically and they host different workshops, conferences and festivals, and speakers on green building related topics.
The USGBC has a training program to get certified in their standards and become a LEED Accredited Professional. It's a thorough overview of green building and the "certification" has increasing cache in the design/engineering/construction world.
Also the EEBA (Energy Efficient Builders Association) offers courses around the country in specific aspects of green building.
Continue the tour: Details for Builders
Wrap-Up/FAQ
