DGH Painting Primer: Success!

Saturday, December 7, was our Dynamic Green Home Painting Primer. Thanks to the dozen or so volunteers who came out in some remarkable cold to learn and paint. Thanks as well to our Sponsors and Partners, represented by

• Paul Bergevin (Hirshfield's Paint) 
• Steve Lincowski (Wooster Brush) 

 and to our DGH crew members

• Phil Kirkegaard (general contractor) 
• Cindy Martimo (interior design teacher at Dunwoody)

Next week we'll have some pictures of the finish coats when we show up for the Fundamentals of Flooring session. (Speaking of which, have you contributed to our Barnraisings effort yet?) 

For now, here are some shots of what Saturday looked like.

Welcome Volunteers sign         © harrington

Volunteers signing in        © harrington

Paul Bergevin, Hirshfield's        © harrington

environmentally friendly, family owned, local   © harrington

low and no VOC contractor's paints      © harrington

zero VOC paint          © harrington

Steve Lincowski, Wooster  © harrington

commercial grade brushes and rollers       © harrington

brushes and rollers awaiting volunteers     © harrington

wall, before painting            © harrington

volunteers cutting in and rolling    © harrington

volunteers cutting in and rolling    © harrington

volunteers cutting in and rolling    © harrington

One of the things that I learned is that changing the composition of paint to make it low or no VOC triggers a need for corresponding changes in application tools. We already know that Hirshfield's has been working to produce their paints in an environmentally friendly way. Hirshfield's and Wooster have been working for quite awhile at making it better and easier for contractors (and homeowners) to be more environmentally sensitive when painting.

Join us next weekend at our Dynamic Green Home for Fundamentals of Flooring. We'd love to see you there.

Help Wanted

Happy Holidays. As you read this, are you somewhere warm, maybe at home. Are you healthy and looking forward to the exchange of presents during your celebration of the holidays? Would you consider adding one more request to your list?

DGH 929 Edmund Credit Board     © harrington

During the next few days you have a chance to help give a Twin Cities family a healthy, affordable home where they can enjoy their holidays. For a few hours of your time or a few dollars of your money, you can help us "green up" our first Dynamic Green Home.

Let's try to put some perspective on why this is really important. There have been numerous studies on the benefits of (and need for) healthy housing. The United States Green Building Council, in a 2012 brief, found:

"An unhealthy home with high operating costs due to inefficiency in energy and water consumption is not affordable....

"Currently, high utility bills are pervasive in the affordable housing. Indeed, low - income households spend on average 19.5% of annual income on home energy costs, while the average for median - income households is just 4.6%.1 ... high utility bills are a serious problem, but asthma, allergies, and other chronic problems that can be exacerbated by exposure to toxins in the built environment can be matters of life and death..."

1"The Cold Facts: The First Annual Report on the Effect of Home Energy Costs on Low - income Americans. " National Fuel Funds Network , National Low - income Energy Consortium , National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association . 2002.  http://www.nliec.org/facts.pdf 

The Minnesota Chapter of the USGBC, working with Greater Frogtown Community Development Corporation and our community partners, is taking care of two major healthy home factors in the green rehabilitation of 929 Edmund Street. First, this coming weekend (December 7), with help from Hirshfield's, we're painting the interior with low VOC paints. Join us if you can and donate some time. Give yourself a chance to feel really good this season. Second, and here's where we could use both your money and your time, we're fundraising for our Fundamentals of Flooring work the following weekend (December 14).

929 Edmund St. (before)        © harrington

Why are we making such a deal of this? Why do we think this is not only important, but critical? Hardwood floors provide fewer places for dust mites and other asthma triggers to hide than does wall to wall carpeting. They also make it easy to see when it's time to vacuum or sweep. Have you ever seen the costs of treating asthma, just for our children in Minnesota? They're astounding.

According to the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 

"The best estimate of total costs of environmentally attributable childhood diseases in the state of Minnesota is $1.569 billion per year, with a range of $1.393 to $1.890 billion. Cost estimates for specific diseases are: 

 Childhood asthma: $30.6 million  Childhood cancers: $8.2 million
 Lead poisoning: $1.223 billion  Birth defects: $4.5 million
 Neurobehavioral disorders (excluding lead): $303 million"

So, we know that childhood asthma costs Minnesota more than $30 million a year. It costs the families of these children much more than money. There's lost time from school for acute attacks. Lost learning when children don't feel well. Anxiety and stress for parents. Let's speculate for a minute that substantially reducing asthma triggers in a green, healthy home doesn't eliminate asthma, but reduces the frequency and severity of asthma attacks by 40%. Simple math tells me we could save more than $12 million dollars every year on our health bills under such a scenario.

Dynamic Green Home (work in progress)        © harrington

We're working to make our Dynamic Green Homes strategy replicable. Helping us now will let us help many more families in the future. Join us. Make this holiday season a merry, happy, healthy one for your family and at least one other family in the Twin Cities. Thanks!

Work in Progress

We though you might be interested in an update on the Dynamic Green Home. We've got much, but not all, of the planting and landscaping done. The contractor's obviously making progress on the exterior. (Interior shots come next month.) For a construction site, despite some litter, it's pretty clean and organized. No, the fact that the building is now red doesn't mean it's not a green project. Our green is more than skin deep. 

Credit Board

New siding

Over house wrap

Mulch awaiting installation

East side yard serviceberries

Hydrangia

Retaining wall and patio to be

DGH Paint Partner

Dynamic Green Homes (DGH) is delighted to have Hirshfield’s as a Community and Education Partner and a material donor. Through their partnering in the DGH, Hirshfield’s is broadening their corporate engagement with the neighborhood. More about Hirshfield’s role can be found in this video. If you join us on December 7, you’ll get a “hands-on” opportunity to learn more about how Hirshfield’s products can help you green both the DGH and your own home.

Throughout its history, Hirshfield’s Paint Manufacturing (HPM) has been committed to delivering quality products, formulated with the selection of raw materials that are safe for the environment, safe for their customers, and safe for their employees. Being environmental stewards has always been important to Hirshfield’s operational objectives, as demonstrated in the following:

• Hirshfield’s manufacturing facility operates a closed loop reprocessed water system. All wash water used in clean-up process and in the purging of manufacturing equipment is re-used.

• Their facility is designated and in compliance with being a very small quantity generator of hazardous waste (solvents). HPM is committed to a program where less than 200 gallons of waste solvent is generated annually.

• Recycling of all cardboard and paper products generated in manufacturing process.

• Refitting of facility lighting system that conserves 76,000 kwh of power annually. (That’s equivalent to the total electricity consumed each year by about 100 Minnesota homes.)

• Hirshfield’s products can help meet green building criteria such as the United States Green Building Council’s LEED® certification.

• Hirshfield’s collects all dust-like particles generated in the manufacturing process with dust collectors and recycles all filtered dust particles, preventing airborne contaminant from entering into the environment.

• They have converted all forklifts used within the manufacturing facility to battery packs, eliminating all trucks which ran on fossil fuels.

• The utilization of non-toxic raw materials throughout all of Hirshfield’s Paint Manufacturing’s formulation base. As examples, Hirshfield’s avoids using carcinogenic chemicals such as crystalline silica, and Ethylene Glycols.

• They manage a container return program and recycle totes and recycle drums.

For additional environmental preservation please look for Hirshfield’s “green choice”

ReGENerating Rain Gardens (Part 2)

This week, in Part 2 of the landscape and rain garden summary, we're going to take a close look at the proposed plantings, donated by Dragonfly Gardens, for the front yard and the east side yard. (The narrow side yard on the west side of the house is becoming a french drain.) Here's a schematic of the front yard. Samuel Geer of reGEN Land Design, our Education Partner for the rain garden, and a member of the Emerging Professionals of the Minnesota Chapter of the USGBC, provided the design and list of materials. You can see that there are fewer species and total plants (depending on the number of Hostas) that we're using in the rain garden.

Below is a listing of Common Names, Latin Names and number of plants for the front and east side yard. The Common Names have links to additional information. [Depending on availability at planting time, there may be some species substitutions, but all plantings will be native.] Please plan on joining us October 26 to learn more about using these beautiful native plants in your own landscaping plan and to see the hands-on installation of a rain garden and French drain. 

Topics to be Covered include:

• Low maintenance landscape design
• Design with native species and horticultural varieties.
• Invasive species control
• On-going maintenance

Proposed Plantings
(front and east side)

Number	Latin	Common
12	Amelanchier alnifolia 'Regent'	Regent Serviceberry
many	Hosta spp. (mixed)	Mixed Hosta
4	Aronia melanocarpa 'Autumn Magic'	'Autumn Magic' Chokeberry
1	Cornus hessi 'Garden Glow'	Garden Glow Dogwood

When you come, please remember that parking is on-street so car pool, bike or walk, if you can. Here's a map link to 929 Edmund, in case you need it.

ReGENerating Rain Gardens

This week we're going to take a close look at the proposed plantings, donated by Dragonfly Gardens, for the back yard and rain garden. Next week we'll get to the front and side yards. Here's a schematic of the back yard. Samuel Geer of reGEN Land Design, our Education Partner for the rain garden, and a member of the Emerging Professionals of the Minnesota Chapter of the USGBC, provided the design and list of materials.

Although we're not going for LEED for Homes certification with this project, it's worth noting that one of the Sustainable Sites prerequisites is "no invasive plants." Minnesota Green Communities has a similar requirement. We did some quick checking and were pleased to find [as expected] that the backyard species are predominantly native Minnesotan and none could be found on invasive species lists. (We were unable to find a single, free, definitive list of Minnesota invasive species on-line.) Below is a listing of Common Names, Latin Names and number of plants for the back yard. The Common Names have links to additional information. [Depending on availability at planting time, there may be some species substitutions, but all plantings will be native.] Please plan on joining us October 26 to learn more about using these beautiful native plants in your own landscaping plan and to see the hands-on installation of a rain garden and French drain.

Topics to be Covered include:
• Low maintenance landscape design
• Design with native species and horticultural varieties.
• Invasive species control
• On-going maintenance

Proposed Plantings 

Number	Latin	Common
1	Aronia melanocarpa	Iriquois Beauty Chokeberry
36	Carex Pennsylvanica	Pennsylvania Sedge
3	Eupatorium dubium	"Little Joe" Joe Pye Weed
13	Iris versicolor	Blue Flag Iris
12	Panicum virgatum	Shenandoah Switchgrass
13	Rudbeckia fulgida	'Goldsturm' Black Eyed Susan
3	Perovskia atriplicifolia	Russian Sage
1	Amelanchier x grandifolia	Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry
6	Diervilla lonicera	Dwarf Bush Honeysuckle
9	Calamagrostis-acutiflora-karl-foerster	Feather grass
1	Hydrangea paniculata	Hydrangea

Here's a map link to 929 Edmund, in case you need it. 

Green building, healthy community

This past June, on the 28th to be specific, USGBC National released “Health is a Human Right. Green Building Can Help.” The emphasis on the relationship between green building and human health is a close to perfect fit for the work we’re doing with the Greater Frogtown Community Development Corporation on our Dynamic Green Home. The linkage between health and affordable housing has been recognized for quite a few years. Reduction or elimination of lead paint hazards, ensuring radon levels are within guidelines and asbestos is remediated are all priorities. Reducing asthma triggers and indoor air quality contaminants are getting increased attention compared to just a few years ago. We were particularly heartened to find the following statement in the report:

“We must shift practice such that our definitions of sustainable building include the well-being of the people in the buildings and the community around them as a matter of course – not an incidental byproduct. In the new paradigm, human performance must be seen as important as energy performance; health conservation equal to water conservation; health management on par with waste management. And we must ground our choices in data, using research and evidence to inform our approaches to healthy design, construction and maintenance. It’s through this holistic approach that green building becomes not just a market transformation tool, but a human transformation tool as well.” 

929 Edmund (before)

It’s encouraging to see this kind of holistic approach because we already know of a number of studies indicating that health problems disproportionately affect those with lower incomes living in substandard housing. Furthermore, The Center for Housing Policy and Enterprise, a leading developer of Green Communities criteria, in a report published in 2007, found that “Well-constructed and managed affordable housing developments can reduce health problems associated with poor quality housing by limiting exposure to allergens, neurotoxins and other dangers.” That same report concluded “Use of green building and transit-oriented development strategies can lower exposure to pollutants by improving the energy efficiency of homes and reducing reliance on personal vehicles.” Our DGH efforts seem to be right in line with these findings. Be sure to attend one of our upcoming seminars to see how you can improve where you live with healthy options.