[Greenbuilding] Super-efficient school buildings

[Rob Dickinson]

Thanks, Jason and George, for the good ideas.

I should have mentioned earlier our location, which is in the Pacific
Northwest (Eugene area of Oregon).

Rob


On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Jason Holstine <jason at amicusgreen.com>
wrote:

>
> Rob,
>
> Some of the factors will depend on where you are, your climate, your
> politics, and state/local funding mechanisms available. USGBC has an entire
> sub-practice dedicated to schools and there are regional and national
> conferences just for green schools (mid-atlantic was just a couple weeks
> ago).  It doesn’t take much googling to find case studies and practitioners.
>
> Certainly, a wise goal is always to minimize total energy demand, and
> efficient HVAC systems to best meet the forecast demand. You’ll want to
> maximize natural daylighting b/c it also has proven to improve student
> achievement. As a small case, my wife is a teacher at one of the first LEED
> Platinum schools, which is now Tier II (lower income), and the results are
> noticeable beyond the test scores (such as attention).
>
> One of the base arguments to make—which you have your finger on—is that
> maximizing EE and water efficiency will reduce operating and maintenance
> budget factors over decades, which is critical for school systems to free
> expenditures towards curriculum. They’ll want to set-aside some budget for
> training maintenance staff on what will be new technologies to them.
>
> HTH,
>
>
>
> *Jason Holstine *
> Amicus Green Building Center
> “Sustain Your Space”
> e: jason at amicusgreen.com
> w: www.amicusgreen.com
> p: 301-571-8590
> tf: 866-587-9140
> f:  301-571-8597
>
>
>
> On 3/16/15 2:21 PM, "Rob Dickinson" <robd at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> I am participating on a school board advisory committee considering
> options for building a new school in my community.  We're charged with
> considering and making recommendations for the general scope of the project
> (such as the size and # of students to plan for, the design features that
> we hope will be incorporated, etc.), along with considering how much money
> we can reasonable expect the community to support in terms of bond
> financing for the project.
>
> In addition to wanting to achieve the educational goals of this new
> school, I have a particular interest in seeing that any new
> buildings that we construct, including public buildings, be built to very
> high standards of energy efficiency and with sustainable materials where
> possible.
>
> On the committee, I expect to be regularly raising the benefits of
> investing in energy efficiency up front, when the greatest gains can be had
> for the least dollars, relative to either spending way more for energy
> costs in operating the school over the course of the next 60+ years, or
> spending way more to retrofit in energy efficiency in later.
>
> I'm curious if you have any particular suggestions for what the district
> should prioritize in terms of energy efficiency features and construction
> requirements.  I would think that the ordering would be roughly similar to
> how one prioritizes for residential construction, with a primary focus on
> the longest lasting components and those hardest to change later, such as
> the building envelope and insulation models, air tightness and ventilation
> system, and highly efficient heating/cooling systems, lighting fixtures,
> etc.  I would also think that this would be a good time to invest in
> renewable energy systems like solar PV, which is at a very low price point,
> and that a bare minimum would be to pre-wire for solar. In Oregon, I
> believe there is a state mandated requirement that 1.5% of a project budget
> be allocated towards renewable energy systems.
>
> I would love to see the school built with a high-R-value wall system,
> using either a significant amount of exterior rigid foam insulation or
> double-stud walls, or both.  I remodeled my own house to have 9"
> double-stud walls filled with dense-pack cellulose and 4" of polyiso rigid
> foam exterior insulation, with similar (or greater R-value) assemblies
> under the house and in the roof.
>
> In residential construction, I take inspiration from the Passive House
> standard, focusing on super insulation and very strict air tightness
> standards.  I think the same general principles should apply for school
> facilities, but I do have questions around how the ventilation requirements
> should differ, given the much greater human occupancy.  Obviously the
> ventilation rates need to provide for adequate fresh air intake, but I'm
> curious as to the health/wellness concerns when you frequently have many
> sick kids inhabiting the same space as healthy kids, and how that level of
> ventilation affects HRV/ERV designs and capacities and the benefits of air
> tightness.
>
> I would welcome any ideas on construction of super-efficient school
> buildings, including:
>
> 1) construction practices
> 2) wall, roof, and floor assemblies
> 3) ventilation designs and practices
> 4) incorporation of renewables
> 5) incorporation of energy monitoring or other systems approaches to
> reduced energy usage
>
> I would also appreciate any references to great projects that we should be
> aware of and perhaps using as models.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rob Dickinson
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> Greenbuilding mailing list
> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
> Greenbuilding at bioenergylists.org
>
> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
>
> http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Greenbuilding mailing list
> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
> Greenbuilding at bioenergylists.org
>
> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
>
> http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org
>



-- 
"I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all
the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends
I want to see." — John Burroughs (1837-1921) American naturalist, writer
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20150316/388e3172/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 4216 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20150316/388e3172/attachment.gif>