Angora homeowners going green
October 3, 2007
Many homeowners rebuilding in the wake of this summer’s Angora fire are planning to rebuild their homes with green technologies that improve efficiency and fire resistance.
Homeowner and Kayak Tahoe tours business owner Steve Lannoy lost his home in the fire.
“I’m taking a total open approach,” Lannoy said. “But if I rebuild, I will definitely go green.”
Danny Webb of Sierra Sustainable Builders said he is helping three homeowners in the rebuilding process, and that all three of them are going green.
“We’re primarily using cement board siding,” Webb said. “It’s cheaper than cedar, easy to apply, easy to paint, made of recycled materials, efficient and fire resistant. It can be used with any number of framing options. It’s our most recommended product.”
“For roofs we’re going with asphalt shingles,” Webb said. “A lot of roofs are heavily fire coated, but asphalt is fire resistant. It’s also easily recycled and can be turned back into road base if a re-roofing is ever necessary.”
Stonefield Development, a contracting company based out of San Diego, is also trying to help Angora homeowners go green.
“We’ve got about 25 homeowners who have signed letters of interest in our Angora Fire Rebuild program,” said Patti Moser, project manager for the program. “We’re striving for maximum efficiency both in the finished homes and in the building process itself. All of our homes will be built to the new (2008) codes.”
The Angora Fire Rebuild plan is modeled off of the Scripps Ranch Rebuild that Stonefield did for 81 homeowners following the San Diego Cedar fire in October of 2003.
“The Angora Fire Rebuild is designed specifically for Angora though. We’ll be working with local subcontractors as well,” Moser said.
Staying local is a concern for Steve Lannoy.
“I’ll give my local buddies the first option if I rebuild,” said Lannoy, who is also considering the option of letting the Tahoe Conservancy buy-out his property. “I just believe in their program and think it’s good for the lake. Part of my lot is wetland, so it might be good to ensure that it gets protected.”
Concern for the environment seems to be on everyone’s mind after the devastation of Angora.
“We’re really hoping to start building concrete homes,” Webb said. “There’s a huge market for concrete homes in the valley right now, and we’d like to see more of it happening up here at Tahoe. It’s getting harder and harder for people to meet the efficiency requirements of Title 24, the California mandates for efficiency in building. Cement buildings are already 15 percent beyond Title 24 requirements, and those restrictions are just going to get stricter by the year. A lot of recycled material can be used in the construction too.”
In addition to recycled aggregates that can be used to make concrete, fly-ash, a waste product from coal burning power plants, is being used more and more in concrete production.
“Up to 90 percent of concrete can now be made from fly-ash,” said Philippe Cohen, director of the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, home of Stanford University’s first “green” building.
Fly-ash produces stronger, more durable concrete and can easily be obtained locally through Headwaters Inc., which has two terminals for its products in Northern Nevada and three more in Northern California.
For a comprehensive list of green architects, engineers, material suppliers and builders, visit the Sierra Green Builders Association Web site at www.sigba.org. At the SiGBA Web site you can also register for the Oct. 6 Green Home Tour.
“The Green Tour was one of the primary starts to our association,” said Eli Meyer, president of the association.
This year’s tour will be around North Lake Tahoe between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., departing from 64 Acres Park, behind the Bridgetender in Tahoe City. Seating is limited to about 45 people on a biodiesel bus, fueled courtesy of Truckee Biofuels.
“The home tour shows people what’s real and what’s working right now (with green building technologies) in the local area,” Meyer said.
Do you have a green home? Have some suggestions for other readers? Feel free to add your comments.
Some other resources include:
www.sigba.org -an advocate for environmental design within the Central and Northern Sierra Nevada
www.greenbuilding.com -an informative and interactive site
www.greencommunitiesonline.org -an initiative to help low income families go green
www.firewise.org -explore a fire safe home in virtual reality
Related posts: [ Green tour highlights Tahoe homes, values ] [ Ways of going green ] [ Fire fund extends deadlines for Angora victims ] [ Delicia Spees talks about the Angora fire ] [ “Love thy neighbor” takes on a new meaning for local church ]
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Thanks, Our Tahoe.org, for covering green building and the Angora fire homes. What is often left out of the discussion of building green at Tahoe is radon. Radon is recognized by the U.S. Surgeon General as the second highest cause of lung cancer, second only to cigarette smoke. And Tahoe is recognized as a very high radon area with over 50% of the South Lake Tahoe homes testing over the EPA action level of 4 pCi/L. Radon is listed under Indoor Air Quality on the LEED for Homes Project Checklist, yet many “green” builders are not incorporating radon resistant measures when they build green houses. This is even more surprising since it is much easier to add RRNC (Radon Resistant New Construction) to a new house than to mitigate a house after it is built, with lower costs ($400 vs. $4,000). The EPA has a web page devoted to RRNC (http://www.epa.gov/radon/construc.html) and a good book for builders entitled Build Radon Out which can be downloaded at (http://www.epa.gov/radon/pdfs/buildradonout.pdf) or picked up at the El Dorado County Building Department. More information on radon at Tahoe is available at http://www.radonattahoe.com. Sadily, few of the builders working in the Angora fire area, either green or conventional, are building radon out. This could be remedied if more architects, builders, owners, and inspectors become “radon aware.”
Thanks for the additional info Jeff. Building awareness of the many different issues that face Tahoe residents, workers and visitors is one of the primary things this Web site is about. We do that with the help of citizens such as yourself who are willing to join the conversation and share their knowledge. In my work and research on green housing and such I never came across anything dealing with radon, and your comments highlight the limitations that journalists face as they strive to help communities. Only by sharing our process with the public and engaging in conversation can we gain better understanding of the issues that we all face. So thank you for getting involved.