April 24-25, 2009
Build It Green, Certified Green Building Professional Course, by Dave Good
I attended this certification course hosted by CATT (Contractors Association of Tahoe Truckee) and SiGBA (Sierra Green Building Association) in Truckee. There were 110 building professionals from Northern California present for the training which was mostly delivered by Joshua Pierce. Mr. Pierce proved to be a dynamic and interesting trainer. He presented the 5 basic concepts of green building as; Energy Efficiency, Resource Efficiency, Water Efficiency, Community Design and Indoor Environmental Quality. The two days were filled with information on building science, design, materials, systems and implementation techniques. The test was simple and straight forward and the catering was excellent. I also liked that they suggested everyone bring their own drinking containers; however, bottled water was still consumed.
The BIG (Build It Green) way is attractive to me because it is simple and affordable compared to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). It makes a lot of sense to have these programs with their guidelines and methods of quantifying green building as it can be an abstract term and is easily abused in the marketplace. Also, having third party verification by trained professionals of green building is important for consumer confidence and as a learning tool for builders. BIG will make it more reasonable for a small business like Atmosphere to achieve a recognized level of performance beyond the very basic Federal Energy Star Rating , yet not as difficult or expensive as LEED. All of these programs have their pitfalls, but depending on the projects goals their values may outweigh the pitfalls.
Later this summer I plan to take the BIG Certified GreenPoint Rater Course so that I have a complete understanding of that system and can also rate other builders’ homes and learn from the experience. There are so many new materials, systems and methods that it is important to stay in the ‘know’.
At Atmosphere we want to be on the cutting edge of sustainable/green building and we enjoy learning and employing new ways of building efficient and beautiful homes.
Read more about who we are and take a look at some of our projects.
|
