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Concrete Home > Concrete Homes Newsletter > 2009 > July/August

July/August 2009

• Zero Energy Home and Office Provides Green Building Solution
• Pushing—and Lifting—the Envelope: 2009 TCA Achievement Awards
• Virginia Home Wins Awards with Green Design
• LEED v3 Debuts
• PCA Offers Online Education through Webinars
• Ask The Expert
• Upcoming Events
• Tools of Our Trade
  -SP405
  
  

Zero Energy Home and Office Provides Green Building Solution

For decades, Dale and Beverly Stevenart have been building energy-efficient homes.  When it came time to build their dream home and office, they chose concrete building materials to help achieve the most sustainable structure.  Located in Pueblo West, Colo., their Zero Energy model home and office is perfectly located for mountain views and access to state parks, bike trails, and marinas.  PolySteel 4600 Series Insulating Concrete Forms (ICFs) were used for the exterior walls, and the mix included 15% recycled fly ash content.  Atop the ICF walls, raised heel trusses complete the thermal envelope.  Vbuck (by Vinyl Technologies, Inc.) window and door openings helped simplify the building process. 

Concrete is also used to beautify the project inside and out.  Nine-foot ceilings and walkout elements leading to a decorative imprinted concrete patio provide a feeling of open space. Surrounded by 33-inch tall concrete walls, the patio includes a floor drain and a 6-foot-wide stairway with four steps up to grade.  Five-foot tall concrete courtyard walls enclose a cozy yard while still allowing moutnain views from the lower level office.  Exterior walls are finished in El Rey cement-based stucco and Eldorado architectural stone veneer.

The 1,973-square-foot project boasts a HERS rating of 17, one of the best scores in the area.  In addition to concrete, the home uses many other sustainable building products: 30 photovoltaic solar panels-, Insulstar polyurethane foam insulation, Energy Star lighting, recycled products, Energy Star Low-E NFRC-rated fiberglass windows and doors, water-sense toilets, a drip irrigation system, fire-rated roof, and five solar thermal panels to provide radiant heat in the floors and heating for domestic hot water.  The Stevenhart’s home also incorporates many measures to protect the indoor air quality. 

Since its completion in September of 2008, the home/office has saved over 112,000 pounds in CO2 emissions from being released into the atmosphere.

Craftsman Homes & Design specializes in high performance and zero energy construction.  For more information, please click here.

Pushing—and Lifting—the Envelope: 2009 TCA Achievement Awards

Architecture has arrived, front and center, for tilt-up concrete. Recent advancements have really enhanced tilt-up’s aesthetic and structural adaptability. Once limited to relatively plain, flat panels with minimal shadow or relief around window and door openings, this construction system can now produce curved walls, overhangs, walkways, and canopies. One notable tilt-up panel from the awards, which forms a conical-shaped entrance that is the building’s  centerpiece, was cast on a specially shaped bed  resembling a skateboard park. At the same time,  the color and texture options  popular for precast and cast-in-place concrete are also finding more and more uses with tilt-up construction.

As if improved appearances weren’t enough, the sheer size of some panels is impressive. New equipment and technology have allowed for large walls, some as tall as 111 feet and others more than 80 feet wide, and weighing up to 120 tons. Not only does that make for speedy construction, it’s another way that concrete adds to a tight building envelope with fewer joints and reduced maintenance.

With 12 submission categories, the TCA Design Awards cover a wide range of building applications: commercial, education, housing, institutional, retail, office, warehouse, manufacturing/industrial, special, civic, spiritual, and parking garage. Click here for the TCA awards page.

Besides offering architectural appeal and construction speed, tilt-up can also contribute to sustainability. Using LEED® v3 NC (new construction) as an example, the table below summarizes how tilt-up concrete can generally help earn project points in five of the seven categories. It can help provide two of the (required) eight prerequisites and from 18 to 36 of the 110 total points.


Tilt-Up Concrete and LEED® v3 Rating System

Contact Jamie Farny or Donn Thompson.

Virginia Home Wins Awards with Green Design

Christened “The Mothership”, the Miller Custom Homes Project for the Virginia Home-A-Rama blends together green design and Southern beauty.  The home utilizes Polysteel Insulating Concrete Forms, protecting it from strong winds and hurricanes.  In addition to its exterior concrete walls, the home also contains a concrete safe room, which can protect inhabitants against tornados and hurricanes. 

Thanks to energy efficient concrete walls , the 6,900-square-foot home costs no more than $115 a month to heat and cool.  Geothermal heating and cooling, a gray water system, recycled products, and solar photovoltaic systems also help keep energy costs for the five-bedroom home at extremely low levels. 

Miller Custom Homes considers The Mothership to be a prototype of the homes of the future.  The firm’s commitment to green building and concrete has helped it earn many awards, including Critic’s Choice Awards for Best Craftsmanship, Most Efficient Floor Plan, Best Green Feature, and Best Use of Concrete. 

The ICFs were provided by Dominion Building Group, Inc. The first distributor/contractor member of the Insulating Concrete Form Association (ICFA), Dominion specializes in structural concrete, with an emphasis on the installation of ICF walls and floors. For more information, please visit for their website at www.dominionbuildinggroup.com or call T. Reid Pocock, Jr., P.E., LEED AP at (757) 491-5592.

For more information about The Mothership or Miller Custom Homes, please visit www.millercustomhomesonline.com. 

LEED v3 Debuts

On April 27, 2009, The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) released the latest version of its green building rating system: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) v3.  The rating system was updated to include advances in technology and building sciences and places even higher emphasis on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions reductions. 

June marked the deadline for test takers under the old LEED v2.2.   The new version will not only incorporate updates in the rating systems, but also will mark the launch of a more reliable and faster LEED Online.  The Green Building Certification Institute will also be administering an expanded building certification infrastructure based on ISO standards. 

LEED was designed to help building professionals build greener, more sustainable projects.  In June, the USGBC began offering a revamped LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) program which now provides specialized training for specific LEED market segments.  Training for LEED AP Homes and LEED AP O & M (Operations and Maintenance) credentialing has begun, with additional classes to come for other market designations.

PCA Offers Online Education through Webinars

In May, PCA’s Donn Thompson, Manager of Low-Rise Sustainability and Technology delivered a webinar entitled “Concrete Solutions for the National Green Building Standard.”  The webinar offered a wealth of practical knowledge for building professionals. 

PCA is continuing to offer new online educational opportunities.  The Education and Training Department will be offering new webinars nearly every week, and many of these qualify for Continuing Education Credits (CEUs).  Upcoming webinars include:

• Impact of Water on Concrete Properties – July 9, 2009
• Aggregates for Use in Concrete – July 16, 2009
• Hot Weather Concreting – July 23, 2009
• Chemical Admixtures for Use in Concrete – August 27, 2009
• Top 10 Myths in Concrete Construction – September 3, 2009
• Decorative Concrete Finishing with Color and Texture – September 9, 2009
• Supplementary Cementitious Materials for Use in Concrete – September 15, 2009
• Impact of Cement Characteristics on Properties of Concrete – September 30, 2009
• Pervious Concrete – October 8, 2009
• Volume Changes of Concrete – October 15, 2009

For more information on these and other classes, please click here. 

Ask The Expert

Q: Can concrete pavers be used to create sustainable pavements?

A: Green building programs and standards typically include provisions for reducing stormwater runoff from newly developed sites.  Pervious pavement, a porous ready-mix concrete that will freely drain moisture back into adjacent soil has attracted a lot of attention.  Another cement-based approach involves the use of concrete pavers as an environmentally friendly way to provide long lasting, beautiful walks and driveways that effectively filter and drain stormwater.  Called “permeable interlocking concrete pavements, ” these systems provide the added benefit of rich patterns and textures, and are available in many lighter colors to help reduce heat.

These systems feature a layer of solid concrete pavers separated by joints filled with small stones.  Water enters the joints between the pavers and drains into an “open-graded” base of crushed stone, with no small or fine particles.  The voids between the stones store water runoff and slowly release it back into adjacent soil.  Ground water supplies can be replenished.  Downstream erosion and flooding can be reduced.

Permeable interlocking concrete pavements have been used effectively to reduce stormwater infrastructure expense, and save space by shrinking or eliminating detention ponds.  The pavers are made with high-strength, compressed concrete that resists abrasion, freeze-thaw damage, and degradation from deicing salts.  They stand up well to impact from repeated snow removal.

 Share your own Concrete Homes technical questions by forwarding them in an email to: concretehomes@cement.org.  We will respond by email and may even publish your question in our next Concrete Homes Newsletter.

Upcoming Events

Tools of our Trade

BESTSELLER! SP405: Concrete Systems for Homes and Low-Rise Construction

Written by experts from the Portland Cement Association, Concrete Systems for Homes & Low-Rise Construction provides expert, straightforward answers on concrete systems. Open these pages for everything you want to know about availability of products, evaluating concrete systems for homes and low-rise buildings, requirements for application, managing projects, and much more. Based on case histories, field research, and hands-on-the-hammer experience, and with more than 325 photos and illustrations, this one-stop resource shows and tells what you want to know. It's a huge time and money saver!

For more information, click here.

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