Especially with energy still on everyone’s radar, the new technology in the hospital’s three new buildings will focus on energy and water savings. The buildings will use 30% less energy than statutory requirements, have Energy Star rated roofs which keep the buildings cooler on hot days and reduce energy use, and they have “closed-loop” air conditioning systems, meaning the system uses water for cooling is reused rather than wasted. Although do they really need AC in San Francisco?

Because this is a hospital, designers and builders people actually gave a nod to indoor air quality with use of low or zero VOC paints, wood, glues, and flooring materials in the new buildings. Reducing the highly toxic VOC’s, and other indoor air contaminants will only improve indoor health for Laguna Honda residents and staff.

With this green thinking, finally hospitals will start to realize that hospital recovery not only comes with injecting various medicines into patients but giving them a place that offers a healthier environment as well.

Image courtesy JKL

San Francisco’s zany Bay to Breakers race brings out not only world class runners but crazy costumes as well. Some companies took advantage of the crazy and healthy atmosphere to promote various items (energy drinks, anti pain patches) but we had to question the Foster Farms “Say No to Plumping” race team.

Sure, everyone seemed to enjoy having their photo taken with the plump Foster Farms chickens but the brightly colored 16-person Foster Farms race team seemed bent on raising awareness of a little-known food fact: “plumped” or saltwater-injected chicken that costs consumers their health and money.

Instead of plumping maybe consumers and Bay to Breakers racers should be more concerned with eating chicken that isn’t organic, isn’t free-range and isn’t raised humanely. Foster Farms claims that they do not add hormones, steroids, or artificial enhancers. Okay but they don’t say whether or not the chicken is truly free-range or all natural.

This whole “Plumping” thing seemed to scream for everyone to be an aware consumer as far as economics go but aren’t missing the boat to promote health as well? It won’t do any good to save a buck or two on chicken (or any other meat for that matter) if you come down with some disease because of how a company raises the chickens . Maybe next year, maybe we’ll see some organic, pastured chickens run the race.

It’s not like we haven’t seen coupon books like this before in other cities (like Portland and Austin) but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be tickled green by San Francisco’s own Green Savings coupon book.

Green Zebra – San Fran’s Green version of those Entertainment coupon books recently hit the stands. You don’t have to be too bashful about using these coupons because the book only contains local green business (sorry Whole Foods) with a slew of restaurants, spas, shops and the like. Aside from the myriad coupons the book offers ideas about how create a Green Wedding, a list of Dirty Dozen produce, and our fave, a neurotic recycler quiz. Maybe it won’t hit the NY Times Top 100 Book List but who really cares when you can sip a free Green Zebra tomato martini at Bacar.

We actually feel sorry for the owner for the owner of the Green house in Bernal Heights. That same property (338 Holladay Ave.) has been languishing on the market for almost three months. That’s the same residence where the house’s owner wrote a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle several weeks back, which practically exclaimed a rebuttal to the paper’s articles saying that Green houses are all the rage and will sell like hotcakes.

The owner can’t be a happy camper as he and his agent continually drop the asking price from $1,279,000 to $1,195,000 to $1,049,000 to $994,000. The owner claims that location sells houses, as evidenced by the Green house in Noe Valley.  True the Noe Valley Green house location represents a superior addy to the one in Bernal Heights. Also, that Noe Green house sale occurred in a slightly warmer market.

There may be a degree of truth in the owner’s statement but instead of location, location, location the seller and his agent should be more concerned with marketing, marketing, marketing. And education.

In this market you can’t expect a green house to sell that when people don’t know what it is, or its environmental, health and economic benefits. The real estate agent selling the Green house appears to have little idea of how to market the place. To him it’s just a cute eco-home for the warm and fuzzy eco-family. That’s sweet. From the marketing flyers and listings you almost couldn’t tell this house from any other one in Bernal Heights.

Is a house a house? Is a car a car? Would you want a Yugo salesman selling you a Ferrari? But they’re both cars aren’t they? Tires, engine, seats. What’s the difference? Same with the house. Roof, stairs, kitchen what’s the difference?

Green houses, like Ferraris can rate high as far as technology so if you want to build, buy sell, or make a dwelling more green then find someone who knows about what’s under the engine. Need a referral than contact us and we’ll find you someone who knows their Green stuff. Now please take that Yugo out of our driveway.

With the Arterra, San Francisco’s first LEED certified San Francisco condos, just about ready to go into pre-sales it’s no surprise that some visitors in the sales office appear from curious to confused.

Some prospective buyers who drifted around the sales office came for the Green factor but others don’t know green from pink. The salesroom doesn’t exactly push the green aspect. Those who don’t have an attention to detail could easily miss the bamboo kitchen floors, and the dual flush toilets. Even so, one green product continually baffles potential buyers – the Trespa rainscreen system. It more than baffles, it disturbs some.

We’re not exactly fans of bedding down in high-end coffins, except maybe during Halloween, so people here should get over their fears of something new. The rainscreen system isn’t exactly the new green kid on the block. Builders have been using this overcladding technology since the 1940’s in Scandinavia.

For too many years America builders and engineers have sought to resist nature rather than embrace it. You can’t beat Mother Nature and why should we? Traditional thinking has been to prevent rainwater from entering buildings by use of barriers and sealants. However we don’t live in a vacuum so do to poor workmanship, material degradation and building movement (here in SF?) that system breaks down.

The beauty of rainscreen overcladding comes from the fact that the technology uses the effects of the wind to control rain water from entering the building.

The design uses simple pressure effects of the wind to dissipate the rain water energy. The specially designed drainage paths direct the water away from the opening.

The project manager at the Arterra describes the Trespa rainscreen system like a kind of Gore-tex as it actually allows moisture to flow in AND out. Most other buildings are hermetically sealed which don’t allow any evaporation which traps moisture in the walls and can lead to mold or other hazardous problems. ]]> http://greenerati.com/2006/09/21/who%e2%80%99ll-stop-the-rain/feed/ 0 http://greenerati.com/2006/09/16/ashes-to-ashes/ http://greenerati.com/2006/09/16/ashes-to-ashes/#comments Sat, 16 Sep 2006 07:09:58 +0000 pepeflaco http://greenerati.com/?p=197

Normally the thought of ash brings to mind volcano eruptions, funerals, and maybe religious holidays but for us and green builders it’s about flyash and foundations. So, when discussing the topic with one of San Francisco’s up and coming LEED-AP architects (Melanie Jacobson) she mentioned that the CHPS school they are building in the Sacramento area will have a fifteen percent flyash concrete foundation we looked quizzically at her. Why only fifteen percent? She mentioned that that percentage was about as high as their structural engineers deemed to be sound.

We’ve heard other local green buildings contain as high as thirty percent flyash. So, why the discrepancy? It depends on the configuration of the building, the weight on the structure and most importantly what the structural engineer says.

What the heck is flyash? Flyash is a by-product of coal-fired electric generating plants.

Don’t think that this stuff is some newfangled substance. They used flyash concrete to build the Hoover Dam in 1929. Yes, we know that’s out of our area. But consider on your next sojourn to Vegas you can make a side trip to check out the Dam and then impress friends and strangers with your knowledge of flyash.

Raise the green flag for this powdery substance because as an industrial by-product, it would just be waste but now many resource companies recycle it into cement. It gets better because flyash cement requires less water than Portland cement so it is easier to use in cold weather. It can be an inexpensive substitute for Portland cement in many cases. Everyone has their favorite powder but this one happens to be one of ours. ]]> http://greenerati.com/2006/09/16/ashes-to-ashes/feed/ 0