Dynamic Green = Healthy Home

A big part of the impetus for USGBC-MN’s involvement with the Dynamic Green Home initiative comes from the chapter’s commitment to social and environmental justice. Poor housing conditions and energy inefficiency have a disproportionate impact on low and moderate-income families. That means that green building and sustainable development provide a greater return on investment for those living in affordable housing.

You probably know there’s a National Center for Healthy Homes. Those folks have brought us the Seven Principles of Healthy Homes: A Healthy Home is

1. Dry 
2. Clean 
3. Pest-Free 
4. Safe 
5. Contaminant-Free 
6. Ventilated 
7. Maintained 

I think these principles offer a useful framework through which to look at the work being done to rehabilitate the Dynamic Green Home at 929 Edmund Street. Lets start with a quick overview. OK?

929 Edmund        © harrington

DRY: The yard is going to be landscaped and a rain garden added. This will help move moisture away from the foundation. Some of the improvements are called for by Minnesota’s Building Code, others are best (or at least better) practices from stormwater management and landscape design.

CLEAN: Part of this will come from the application of Integrated Pest Management (prevention rather than extermination), part from the new owner’s efforts to keep food stored properly and the renovated kitchen clean of food residues.

PEST-FREE: Some of the work that Greater Frogtown CDC will be having done includes repair and/or replacement of windows and siding. Sealing openings will limit entrances for pests.

SAFE: The kitchen redesign and bringing stairs up to code will help make the house safer.

CONTAMINANT-FREE: Here’s where a lot of effort is going to be focused. The house has had a lead paint assessment; lead paint remediation and containment will be done. Radon, the second leading cause of lung cancer, will be mitigated and asbestos will be remediated. VOCs (which can trigger asthma and cause cancer) will be reduced by using low VOC paint and building materials. Why is all this so important?

According to USEPA Region 1, an “…average American spends approximately 90 percent of their time indoors….studies of human exposure to air pollutants by EPA indicate that indoor levels of pollutants may be 2 to 5 times – and occasionally more than 100 times – higher than outdoor pollutant levels. Indoor air pollutants have been ranked among the top five environmental risks to public health.”

VENTILATED: New exhaust systems and fans will be installed in the bathroom(s) and kitchen. The house uses radiators so there’s no ducting for forced hot air.

MAINTAINED: The rehabilitation and renovation will catch up deferred maintenance and minimize major maintenance requirements for the new owners for the first few years.

On behalf of the DGH development team, we’d love it if you would join us at one of the upcoming seminars. If you do, you’ll have an opportunity to see many of the improvements that are being made besides those covered in the seminar. It could give you some great ideas for making your own home healthier and more energy efficient.

Dates to Save: Dynamic Green Seminars

October 26: Landscape

December 7: Painting Primer 

December 14 BEING RESCHEDULED: Foundations of Flooring

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve run a floor sander; not so long since I’ve painted a room; and I’ve never designed or planted a rain garden. Flooring refinishing is often done by homeowners, although I did a lot of floor refinishing when I was a renter in Boston years ago. Painting skills are useful for renters and homeowners. Rain garden design and development, using local, non-invasive species,  is more and more worth knowing for just about all us Minnesotans. So, I’m looking forward to refreshing old skills and learning new ones at three upcoming Dynamic Green Home Seminars. 

Each of them is on a Saturday, starts at 9 a.m. and lasts about an hour and a half. Each provides information you could use whether you're a a homeowner or a renter. They'll all be held at our Dynamic Green Home pilot at 929 Edmund St., St. Paul. The first one is just a few weeks away. See you there?

Interior of 929 Edmund (before)

Limited parking is available on street. Please walk or bike if you can.

On Saturday, October 26, again starting at 9 a.m. and continuing for about an hour and a half, we’re scheduled to look at The Dynamic Green Home: Landscape with Sam Geer of reGEN Land Design. reGEN Land Design has created a beautiful, low-maintenance, eco-friendly design for our Dynamic Green Home at 929 Edmund.

Back Yard of 929 Edmund Street (before)

The landscaping seminar will cover:

• Rain garden design and installation
• Low maintenance landscape design
• Permeable paving systems
• Design with native species and horticultural varieties. 
• Invasive species control

The seminar will include the hands on installation of the rain garden plantings by workshop attendees. 

On December 7, Phil Kirkegaard (Certified Energy Manager, Minnesota Licensed Building Contractor and LEED AP), and Cindy Martimo (Principal Instructor, Interior Design at Dunwoody College of Technology) plus a representative from Hirshfield's, our Community and Education partner, will take about an hour and a half, starting at 9 a.m., to conduct a Painting Primer and walk us through these topics:

• Low VOC and alternative paint options
• Color selection – making your paint job last
• Basic painting 101: how to, cutting in, taping, dry-lock and moisture management, dealing with lead 

The seminar will be followed by a volunteer work weekend completing the interior painting of the home. Come to learn, stay to help and practice what you just learned.

On December 14 CHECK BACK FOR NEW DATE we’ll be doing the Foundations of Flooring Seminar at the usual 9 a.m. for an hour and a half. Phil,  Heather and Cindy will be back. This time they’ll be cluing us in on:

• Healthy, sustainable flooring options: Hardwood vs. Carpet, Linoleum no-no’s
• Refinishing hardwood
• What to do when your flooring squeaks
• Options for making your hardwood last: maintenance,
  painting hard wood

 Please join us for one or more of these events. Learn from others and about what we’re doing to make 929 Edmund, Greater Frogtown, St. Paul, the Twin Cities and Minnesota greener, healthier, and more sustainable.

Home, again

See the house in the picture? Take a careful look. Can you see that it’s obviously green? I bet you can. Does that make it a green home? Not by a long shot. Built in 1907, the house you see spent more than 100 years serving as home for one family or another. Grand parents grew old; children grew up in this house. It was a home, not just a house. It was alive with people who lived, loved and laughed in it. That’s one of the big differences between a house and a home. Then, as part of the “great recession,” it became a foreclosure, uninhabited, like too many other houses that were once homes. It may look green, but to be a dynamic green home it will need to be healthier for people, healthier for the environment, and have a family living in it.

929 Edmund Street

Greater Frogtown Community Development Corporation [GFCDC] and the Minnesota Chapter of the U. S. Green Building Council [USGBC-MN] plus collaborators, sponsors and volunteers are going to transform 929 Edmond Street into a healthier dynamic green home for another generation or two. It will be green, not just look green. 

To begin with, you remember the old real estate saying about “location, location and location,” don’t you? 929 Edmund is a fairly green location, 4 blocks from the new University Avenue Green Line, it has a Walk Score of 63, a Transit Score of 59 (before the Green Line is operating), and a Bike Score of 58. This means that the family that eventually lives here won’t have to depend solely on their car(s) to run errands or get to work or school. Transit-oriented locations help improve air quality, a small step toward restorative development. The site is also in the Capitol Region Watershed District, tributary to the Mississippi River and Como Lake, Crosby Lake and Loeb Lake in Saint Paul and Lake McCarrons in Roseville. The rain garden in the landscaping plan helps provides another small step for restorative development—for water quality this time.

During the next few months, the USGBC-MN team will lead three major renovation strategies (landscaping, interior painting and flooring), plus organize and lead community education sessions for each strategy. Inside painting will use paints that look good, clean nicely and meet green building criteria. Yard landscaping will include the already mentioned rain garden, planted with non-invasive native plant species. Flooring will work on finishing the hardwood floors with indoor air-quality friendly finishes and installing linoleum. These green building strategies, provided at minimal or no cost to GFCDC will make the house healthier for people and the environment (and more affordable) by improving indoor air quality; improving water quality and enhancing aesthetics.

GFCDC is responsible for demolition, including lead paint abatement, managing much of the construction and coordination with USGBC-MN. The renovation will fulfill the requirements of St. Paul’s building code report and the St. Paul Housing and Redevelopment Authority’s construction specifications, including many related to green building. In the end, GFCDC will sell the healthier, affordable, renovated house to a low or moderate-income family that will move into, enjoy and be comfortable in their renovated home, making their lives and the community greener, healthier and more sustainable.