June Upstate New York Green Real Estate Report- SUNY Ulster’s Kingston Green Home Tour*

Stephen thought I might be writing about Syracuse this month and picking up where he left off with his post on May 21st about New York State’s first LEED-H Gold project in Syracuse. I do want to get to Syracuse and will soon.

And I will surely get to Rochester too. I was lucky enough to get invited recently to the HSBC press conference about the bank’s incredible $100 million climate change initiative (see Stephen’s posting about that from earlier this month) and while I was there John Beckinghausen, Vice President and Director of Environmental Sustainability for HSBC in North America, told me about a new LEED-certified branch of HSBC in Rochester which employs both solar and geothermal power. I plan on using this branch building as a jumping off point for other inspiring green real estate doings in the Rochester area.

But back to Kingston. This past Saturday, my business partner Joseph Walker and I put together a Green Home tour starting in Kingston, New York. The tour was part of the Green Building and Renovation class that I teach at SUNY Ulster.

The first house on the tour was a home in Rifton owned by certified geothermal installer Charles Lazin and his wife Linda Lauro-Lazin. (Check out http://www.altren.net/.) Charles was one of the first people I’d ever met who installed geothermal systems. He built this house ten years ago, way ahead of the current “new” green curve, which shows clearly that using alternative energy systems for your home was practical and affordable back then, and is even more so now.

The geothermal system at the house is a domestic water well open loop 6T system that empties into a nearby pond. The heat exchange pump has a dual heat exchanger, providing heat to air for the HVAC as well as hydronic hot water for the radiant floor heating throughout the floors of the house. (The water-air geothermal heat pump is low velocity with sealed R-8 rigid ductwork). The system includes a geothermal desuperheater coil for free domestic hot water heating, which is coupled with a tankless on-demand propane heater. The couple also installed a Heat Recover Ventilator (HRV) as part of the package.

Recently, Charles and Linda added a separate 1.5 ton HVAC geothermal system into an 800 square foot art studio that links into the existing well used for home’s geothemal heat exchange pump. Charles said the well provides 50 gallons per minute- easily enough to power the two heat pumps that together use about 11 gallons per minute.

Understanding the whole picture, they buy wind power to offset the increased electrical power required to operate the geothermal pumps. The house itself is framed with SIPs that have an R value of 26. Both the home and the studio are designed to take advantage of natural lighting during the day so as to avoid any needs for electric day lighting. The home has a large southern facing solarium area that heats up the main living area during the day with the natural rays of the sun. Ever the experimenter and innovator, as we were leaving the compound, Charles excitedly showed us the tubes for the solar water heater he is putting on the roof of the garage that he’s renovating into an office for his company.

The next house on the tour was the zero net energy home of David and Paula Kucera in New Paltz. The Kuceras gave Charles and Linda a run for the green money when it came to their enthusiasm for energy efficiency and alternative energy systems for the home. They passionately explained how installing both solar PV and geothermal systems for their home was not just about the up front costs or saving money on energy costs in the future but “a moral obligation” for them. They truly want to be an example and show how we can all make a contribution towards weaning ourselves off the grid and lessening our dependency on foreign oil. As David Kucera said, “perhaps we could have bought a luxury car but this kind of investment is much more meaningful.”

The 2,700 square foot home the Kuceras built is a reconstructed vintage barn that they brought to the site and reassembled. An 8 kilowatt solar array shines off in a field near the house- sitting like a modern sculpture at Storm King Art Center. I have heard people say that they will not use solar PV because they do not like the visual aspects to solar PV systems, but if they saw how beautiful the Kuceras’ array looked in the Norman Rockwell-like setting they might start to think differently. Indeed, Christina of Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s world painting would look quite lovely sitting next to the system on a the expanse of blowing grass in the farm fields of New Paltz. The solar array made a nice contrast with the elegant and charming reconstructed barn they had tucked away near a line of trees. The system was installed by the great team at Hudson Valley Clean Energy over in Rhinebeck. It’s large enough so that between the array and the geothermal system, literally no power comes from the grid to heat and cool the house all year round. The geothermal system is a closed loop well set up that has three 285 feet wells. The house is insulated with blown insulation and an R 26 insulation value on the walls and R 40 on the roof. The basement walls are also very well insulated and dry, as they’re constructed with ICFs.

Last but not least on the Green Home tour was the 2005 home in New Paltz of yet another passionate couple, Hamilton Stapell and Anna Fuentes. The house was built as one of four Green Building Demonstration homes in New York State in a project sponsored by the NAHB Research Center and NYSERDA (depicted in the image above). Originally designed as a green spec house, the 2,170 square foot structure incorporates many affordable green building concepts and was designed and built under the draft New York State Green Building Guidelines. The home sits on a prefabricated, insulated cement (Superior Walls) foundation that arrives on site in panels manufactured and installed like SIPs. Superior Walls are more like ICFs, though, as they are made of cement and covered on both sides with hard extruded polystyrene insulation.

The exterior walls of the Stapell-Fuentes home have blown ICENYNE insulation. The siding is James Hardie cement fiber board and it has an ABC metal roof. In the basement ceiling there is formaldehyde-free fiberglass batt insulation that is made with recycled glass. Cellulose insulation stops heat loss in the attic. Marvin low-E II casement widows finish off the super-insulated structure that comes with an HRV and whole house HEPA air filtration system that keeps the air super fresh and clean all year round. The house also has tons of south facing windows that give it a passive solar effect and the owners are planning on adding a PV solar array on the south facing roof to offset energy use even more.

In addition, the Stapell-Fuentes house has a Tagaki tankless on-demand hot water heater and an on-demand hot water circulation pump. The heating system is a sealed combustion furnace (95% AFUE) and air-conditioning is provided by two high-efficiency units (14 SEER). All appliances are Energy Star-rated. Importantly, all faucets and shower heads are low flow and toilets are dual flush (so the house cuts its water usage down immensely). In addition to all that, it even has a 900 gallon rainwater collection system that is used for toilets and water for the yard. (A cistern in the basement collects water from just one part of the roof)

The owners of all three of these homes should be recognized for setting an example for sustainability throughout the Hudson Valley community. They were deservingly proud to show off their homes to the SUNY students and show them first hand how to build and be green. Despite the vast differences in style, each of these three homes demonstrate how comfortable and practical green homes are if designed well. All of the students went home from the tour inspired and more knowledgeable, ready to move forward and be green and friendly with their own planned building and renovation projects.

• Monday LEEDoff: New York’s First LEED-H Gold Rating (gbNYC)
• HSBC Announces $100M Climate Change Initiative (gbNYC)

*The Upstate New York Green Real Estate Report is a monthly column here at gbNYC.com, written by Paul McGinniss, a partner at the New York Real Estate Group and an advocate of green and sustainable real estate development. Paul teaches a class at SUNY Ulster called “Green Home Building and Renovation,” and he and his business partner, Joseph Walker, teach a monthly class at the Learning Annex in New York City called “How to Invest in Upstate Real Estate.” Paul is also a partner in the media and public relations company Serendipity Associates, which is helping to organize New York House magazine’s Best in Green Building Competition.

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