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The National Association of Home Builders has awarded a '2000 Silver Energy Value Award to Green Village Company and the Hickory Consortium for Erie-Ellington Homes. Erie-Ellington is a 50-unit affordable housing development and community center in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, designed and engineered with research support from the U.S. DOE Building America Program. Erie-Ellington homes use 60% less energy, 40% less water, and emit 50% fewer air pollutants than comparable conventional homes. The Boston Department of Neighborhood Development estimates that at $97 per square-foot for construction, Erie-Ellington cost 25% less to build than comparable city projects.
Housing this tight requires mechanical ventilation to achieve acceptable indoor air quality. For Erie-Ellington, the system had to be simple to install, simple to use, and require little or no maintenance. Eliminating builder call-backs was a critical factor.
The system of choice was a combination high quality bathroom fan and an Airetrak - control from Tamarack Technologies, Inc. The builder programmed the Airetraks to run the fans on and off throughout the day at a low speed, ensuring an efficient air change rate. Stale, polluted air exhausted by the bathroom fans is replaced by fresh air passively drawn back into the house through the few remaining cracks and holes. The flow rate is low enough to make that exchange unnoticeable.
The Airetrak control cover plate hides the programming controls from view, but allows the occupant to override the program to run the fan at full speed just like a standard fan control switch. After twenty minutes, the fan will drop back into its automatic, programmed operation.
Bruce Hampton, architect for the project, stated, "We look at every decision we make through certain filters: Is it good for the planet? Is it sustainable? Is this material going to last for seven generations? If something lasts only 10 years, we don't want to use it." To build these buildings at such an efficient cost meant that the entire building system had to be considered. "A three family building at Erie-Ellington has such low energy usage we were able to eliminate two of the normal three heating systems," said Hampton. "We were able to use just one boiler to heat the hot water and space heat the whole building. If a boiler costs $800 and you would normally have three of them," he said, "if you've only put one in, you've just saved $1,600."
Durability and the longevity of the building materials depends on many factors including the amount of humidity trapped in the building. The Airetrak/bath fan combination ensures that the excess humidity trapped in the tight structure will be removed. This will help limit building maintenance.
The Erie-Ellington project has also been awarded the 2000 Leadership in Energy Efficiency Award by the Massachusetts Alliance for Energy, the Boston Society of Architects 2000 BSA Excellence in Environmental Design Award, and first prize from the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association 2001 Northeast Green Building Award. The Airetrak/bath fan combination has been selected as the system of choice for housing projects from the Sound Insulation Program in Minneapolis to a similar program at the Los Angeles airport. Privacy Policy | PB Ad Info | PR Ad Info | CB Ad Info | GIANTS Ad Info | HZ Ad Info | Contact Us | Subscriptions
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