River Cities Business Journal: Construction

News West

BULLHEAD CITY - Bullhead City area builders will need to adopt a new vocabulary and new way of doing business if they decide to go greener when constructing houses and commercial facilities.

Many builders are already incorporating energy-saving materials into their projects because it makes economic sense, according to Larry Adams of Pueblo Construction.

The Bullhead Regional Economic Development Authority held another green building seminar in June, conducted by Carl C. Ramsey, governing council chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council, Arizona Chapter, Northern Branch in Flagstaff. The USGBC is a non-profit organization, with no government affiliation.

Ramsey also heads up a commercial firm, Architectural & Environmental Associates of Flagstaff.

The subject of the seminar was the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) concept. It's a green building certification program run under the auspices of USGBC. LEED concentrates its efforts on improving performance in the following areas: Energy use, material use and selection, water use and land use.

There are checklists for new construction that rate the building based on a point system. A building can be ranked at four levels, from LEED Certified, LEED Silver, LEED Gold and the highest ranking, LEED Platinum.

There are separate categories for homes, commercial buildings, schools, healthcare facilities, retail stores and existing buildings.

Included in the ratings are the amount of site disturbance during construction, the drought tolerance of plants used in landscaping, the level of surface water management including roof-runoff, efficiency of fixtures for indoor water use, amount of distribution losses from the HVAC system and type of insulation used.

It's possible to build a house with no well or connection to a municipal water system by employing a rainwater harvesting system, Ramsey said. It would even work in an area that only gets three inches of rain per year, if the holding tank were large enough, he said.

Such a system can gather 625 gallons of water per inch of rain for every 1,000 square feet of roof space and may be more cost-effective than drilling a well, according to promotional materials for Ramsey's company.

Rainwater is low in salts and other minerals and the system would avoid contaminants in public drinking water, including chemicals, pharmaceuticals and even cooking spices, Ramsey said.

Builders can get tax credits and rebates from state and federal governments and utilities by adding solar power. “It's so wonderful to see your power meter move backwards,” Ramsey said.